


At the Sign of the Green Dragon

by NotSoSecretlyAUnicorn



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: BAMF Bilba, Bechdel Test Pass, F/M, Female Bilbo Baggins, Female Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Original Dragon Character - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sass, This is supposed to be funny, Trolls, at some point, awkward mash of movie and book canon, bilba is done with your shit, eating your problems, frequent bafflement, god I hope This is funny, my mum thinks its funny, strong opinions on water safety, the ugly iron table leg, thorin would rather bribe than apologise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-11-04 00:31:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17888096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSoSecretlyAUnicorn/pseuds/NotSoSecretlyAUnicorn
Summary: “Look, you great pack of lunatics, there is no one living in this Hobbit hole but me, and it’s been that way since my parents passed.  Now for goodness sake, Gandalf,” she said, turning to the Wizard, “would you please explain what is going on?”“My dear Hobbit,” said Gandalf, “we were endeavouring to…”And it was then that Bilba learnt about a key and a map, a stolen treasure in a lonely mountain and…“Do you mean to tell me,” said Bilba, spotting the familiar symbol on the map, “that this is about the dragon?”“Well,” said Balin, “yes.”Bilba rolled her eyes.  “You might have said so earlier!”





	1. Wielder of the Mighty Iron Leg

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this _ages_ ago and have only just managed to start picking it (or any writing at all) up again. Let's all cross our fingers and hope like hell that I can keep this going. Probably this is not as good as I might have managed several years and fewer meds ago but I'm just happy to be writing at all.
> 
> Part of the reason I started writing this was the lack of ladies in The Hobbit (oh Tolkien...) and also thinking about how gender changes change certain situations. Also how I like confusing characters with a situation that they never could have anticipated given the status quo of canon (fun times). I also started writing this because it amuses NotSoSecretlyASpaceship and my mother. Hopefully a few of you will find amusement here too.
> 
> EDIT: GUYS ITS A CHAPTER FIC! I missed the tick box for unfinished work and it still hasn't updated the change. I'm still editing chapter 2 and will try and post once a week, muse/anxiety permitting.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Which gave Bilba the perfect opportunity to whip out the detached table leg that lived in the umbrella stand, behind the walking sticks and various parasols, and biff him over the head.
> 
> Now, you might be wondering why a well-brought-up Hobbit lass has a lonely iron table leg in her umbrella stand. The answer is perfectly innocent, and involves a protracted tale regarding a dispute with the Sackville-Bagginses over ownership of a rather ugly, single-legged side table that had been made by a mutual great uncle as a courting present for his first sweetheart. This pairing did not eventuate – likely due to the significant ugliness of the side-table – but the SBs seemed to live for social calamity and so when Bilba declined to fork over the table to Lobelia when the old uncle’s household was divided, there was a slight fracas, the pony pulling the furniture cart was upset, the table took a tumble and the leg was all that was left in one piece.
> 
> Bilba kept the leg.

_ 1 - Wielder of the Mighty Iron Leg _

 

The whole ridiculous business began, as these things do, rather innocuously.  Or so it seemed to Bilba, at any rate.

 

The morning was mild and so after breakfast she took her tea out to the front seat to await the mail and take in the air.  She was just pondering whether it might be nice to call on Primula and take a picnic elevenses down at the lake, when an unusually tall figure strode into view and paused at her gate.

 

As if that weren’t alarming enough, what with the weathered grey robe, and startling eyes and leaping eyebrows, he was here about _adventures_.

 

 _Oh_ no.  No _thank you_.

 

Then of course, he told her his name.

 

“Gandalf,” she said, blinking at him.  “Not…not Gandalf, the wandering wizard.  Not Gandalf who had all those brilliant fireworks at Mother’s parties!” 

 

Gandalf smiled, and yes, she _did_ know him.

 

However.

 

“Someone said you were _dead_!”

 

Gandalf’s smile whipped from his face like it had been chased by a bear.  “Well,” he muttered, “At least you _do_ remember me, even if it is only for my fireworks.”

 

Which was the last positive to pass from his lips, in Bilba’s opinion.  Then it was back to adventures and unexplained proclamations and hovering suspiciously outside her shut door.

 

“Mark my words,” she muttered to Lea over lunch, “it will be tears before bedtime, and no mistake.  That wizard is up to something.”

 

“Oh dearie,” Lea said complacently, “I’m sure it will come to nothing.  They’re all hot air in this day and age, you know.”

 

Bilba was not convinced, and so it came as no great surprise when the door suffered a cruel pounding just as she was putting dinner together, and the next thing she knew some great bald Dwarf with skull tattoos – these being tattoos on ones skull, not tattoos depicting skulls – was standing on her door step, growling that he was “Dwalin, at her service,” and then made to push past her into the house.

 

_Well._

 

“Bilba Baggins, at yours,” she replied, allowing a thin, cautious smile.  Then the peered over his shoulder, frowning.  “Are there more of you?” she demanded.

 

Dwalin turned to look over his shoulder, squinting into the dark and saying, “Aye, there should be…”

 

Which gave Bilba the perfect opportunity to whip out the detached table leg that lived in the umbrella stand, behind the walking sticks and various parasols, and biff him over the head.

 

Now, you might be wondering why a well-brought-up Hobbit lass has a lonely iron table leg in her umbrella stand. The answer is perfectly innocent, and involves a protracted tale regarding a dispute with the Sackville-Bagginses over ownership of a rather ugly, single-legged side table that had been made by a mutual great uncle as a courting present for his first sweetheart.  This pairing did not eventuate – likely due to the significant ugliness of the side-table – but the SBs seemed to live for social calamity and so when Bilba declined to fork over the table to Lobelia when the old uncle’s household was divided, there was a slight fracas, the pony pulling the furniture cart was upset, the table took a tumble and the leg was all that was left in one piece.

 

Bilba kept the leg.

 

Previously it had had no purpose other than to set Lobelia’s face contorting when Bilba was obliged to have them over for tea, once in a blue moon, but it appeared to have new purpose, as Bilba was now looking down at a very unconscious Dwarf.

 

You might also be wondering why Bilba felt the need to render Mister Dwalin unconscious.

 

In the first instance, Belladonna Took raised no fool.

 

In the second instance, what might you have done if you were a young lady living alone and a stranger who is significantly larger, undoubtedly stronger and with whom you have no prior acquaintance nor were expecting beyond an intense feeling of dread showed up on your doorstep and invited himself in for some undefinable reason?

 

Yes.  Exactly.

 

In any case.  Bilba was now faced with the unlikely and strange situation of having an unconscious Dwarf before her fine furred toes.  Well, she couldn’t just leave him there.  The neighbours might talk.  But, bringing him inside and waiting for him to come around negated the purpose of biffing him over the head; she might as well have invited him in in that case.  What to do, what to do…?

 

Well, there was that spare washing line, wasn’t there?  Very sturdy four-ply stuff.  And he might fit into the bigger of the armchairs. 

 

Bilba got to work.

 

\------

 

When Dwalin came around, snorting himself to alertness, it was to discover himself firmly bound to a slightly too small armchair with a great many interlocking, complicated chain-knots.  He tested them cautiously.  There was slight give, so he was unlikely to lose any fingers to poor circulation, but he was equally unlikely to get free.  Possibly ever.

 

This was Not Good.

 

When he looked up to face his captor, he was met with the bizarre and strangely chilling sight of a wee beardless lass perched on an ever smaller armchair, sipping tea from a tiny china cup.  Across her respectably skirted knee was an excessively ugly iron table leg.  There was still a bolt sticking out of the top of it, where it had previously been attached to what was undoubtedly an ugly little table, and the edge of this bolt gleamed threateningly in the cheerful firelight.

 

Dwalin was a seasoned warrior.  Dwalin had fought many battles and slain many foes.  Many of them were three times the size of this strange wee lass and far better armed.

 

Dwalin, however, was Not Stupid and Knew When Not to Push His Luck.   Dwarf women are Not to be Trifled With, and it now appeared that the females of this funny little country were of a similar calibre, despite the impression that Dwalin and his kin had been given of a generally quiet, gentle population.  He supposed they were rather like bees; harmless unless stirred.

 

Unlike bees, however, this particular one still had and appeared willing to use her stinger.

 

“Good evening,” the lass said, eyes the chilly blue of a winter morning.

 

Dwalin swallowed.  “Err, yes, I believe it is.”  He wished he could remember her name.

 

She sighed.  “I don’t suppose you’re going to explain what you’re doing here?”

 

“Well…” Dwalin said, momentarily nonplussed.  “I’m tied to a chair, currently.  Was…was that you?” He peered about, wondering where the reputed burglar was, if this was his wife who had clouted him so handily.

 

“Yes,” said she.

 

“Ah…” Dwalin floundered a little.  “Good knots.”

 

“They’re not knots, they’re-”

 

There was the sound of a bell from the front of the house.

 

“That’ll be the door,” Dwalin said helpfully.

 

His captor narrowed her eyes at him, set down her cup and got up.  He watched her hold the table leg behind her voluminous green skirts and pad into the hall.  Once she was safely around the corner he began wiggling futilely against his bonds.

 

Meanwhile, Bilba was at the door, and low and behold, here was another Dwarf.

 

“Balin,” he said, smiling and bowing, very nearly genteel with his red robe and white beard.  “At your service.”

 

“Good evening,” Bilba said, chewing her lip.  Gosh, she would almost feel bad about-

 

There was a yelp and a thud from the living room.

 

Balin frowned.  “Now what was that, lassie?” he asked, and padded past her to the living room.  Upon witnessing Dwalin trussed to a chair which was now tipped onto its back, for goodness sake, Balin gasped, “Brother!”

 

“Oh bother,” sighed Bilba, and beaned him soundly on the head.

 

“Oi!” barked Dwalin, wiggling again as his brother slumped on the rug.  “What do you mean by slaying my kin!”

 

“He’s not dead,” Bilba said crossly, and took a pillow from the sofa to put beneath poor Balin’s head.  She then, sensibly, trussed up his wrists and ankles, before settling back in her arm chair to watch Dwalin wriggle in vain against his bonds.  “Now, tell me why you and he are here, in the Shire.”

 

“As if you don’t know!” Dwalin exclaimed, and began heaving himself to one side, attempting to roll the chair so he could get his knees under him.  There was a scraping sound and then Bilba said, her voice like frost upon a corpse:

 

“If you manage to scratch my floor…”

 

Dwalin froze and peered cautiously at her.

 

Bilba tightened her grip on the table leg.

 

Dwalin’s jaw rotated, as though chewing the threat over.  “You’ll do what, exactly?”

 

Bilba rolled her eyes.  “I’ll roll you down the hill in that chair, dowry antique or no.  Do be sensible please.  I just want to know what two strangers have shown up unannounced – and _uninvited,_ I might add! – in the night, to my house.  Shockingly, I did not set out today to clonk a pair of Dwarves with my uncle’s terrible old table leg!”

 

“It is a very terrible table leg,” Dwalin muttered, much aggrieved that he had been overcome by such awful craftsmanship.

 

“That is beside the point, and no doing of mine,” growled Bilba – and of course, the bell went again.

 

Bilba swore vehemently, unwittingly impressing Dwalin, and marched off to fling the door wide.

 

“What,” she barked, rather rudely to two startled young… _Dwarves_!  For pity’s sake!  More of the blighted things!

 

The two young people blinked at her, and then at the table leg clamped in her fist, and held up their empty hands.  They looked a little white around the eyes.

 

“We’re very sorry to bother you, mistress,” said the one with tawny hair, “but we were told there was a gathering here and…”

 

“And you have the mark on your door, you see!” his dark haired companion finished earnestly.  “So we thought this must be the right place!”

 

Bilba frowned at them.  “Mark?  What mark?  There’s no mark on my door – it was painted a week ago.”

 

“No, but look!”  And they both pointed to the lower quarter of Bilba’s beautiful green door – and there was a blue rune scratched into it, glowing faintly in the deepening evening dark.

 

A Suspicion was forming in Bilba’s mind.

 

“Oh bother and _blast_ him!” she growled, missing the nervous glances sent her way by the two young Dwarves still hovering on her doorstep.  Marching into her sitting room, she loomed over Dwalin.  “Did he send you?”

 

“He who?” said the prone Dwalin.

 

“The bloody Wizard!” snarled Bilba, swinging the table leg in an arc towards the door and nearly hitting the mantle.  “Did that bothersome, meddling old Wizard send you to my house?”

 

“Well of course!” said Dwalin.  “He was tasked to choose the final member of the Company, and picking a place to meet.”  His frown deepened.  “Did yer husband not tell you?”

 

Bilba drew back, puzzled.  “ _Husband_?”

 

“Err, mistress?”  It was the young blond Dwarf, still at the door.  “Are…are we allowed to come in?”

 

Bilba looked from one unwelcome visitor to the next.  Gandalf had sent them, and she couldn’t see him sending anyone dangerous…well, dangerous to her, to her home.  Inconvenient, inconsiderate and irritating, yes, but a danger to her, no.

 

She found herself heaving a great, cross sigh, and saying, “Yes, fine, you can come in…”  They had just set one foot over the threshold when she raised the table leg and said, “On the condition you take off those atrocious boots.  And that you all make yourselves useful.”

 

Looks were exchanged between the Dwarves (the conscious ones, at any rate) and at Dwalin’s nod, the younger two, bowed and said, “yes, miss!” and began smartly removing their boots.

 

Bilba cast a narrow-eyed look at Dwalin, who looked steadily back.  Bilba slowly set down the iron leg. 

 

“Come and set this chair with Mister Dwalin to rights, please,” she told the young ones.  “And I suppose you’d better tell me your names.”

 

\---

 

Fili and Kili were brothers, it turned out and related somehow to Dwalin and Balin.  They were also, Bilba discovered, great talkers once you got them going.

 

Once Dwalin’s chair was set upright, Bilba undid the knot at the back and began to unravel her hasty stitches, winding the line over her arm as she circled the chair.  The boys watched, intrigued. 

 

“It’s like one great big knot, all the way around him,” Kili exclaimed. 

 

“Don’t be daft, can’t you see what it is?” Fili said, nudging his brother.  “It’s like that jumper you had as a little ‘un.  You caught the cuff on a hook and suddenly there was no sleeve, remember?”

 

Dwalin, finally freed from his prison, stood up and demanded, “Do you mean to tell me I was _knitted into a chair_?”

 

“Crocheted,” Bilba said mildly.  “Shall we make your brother a little more comfortable, do you think?”

 

Balin was installed, with much heaving and grunting and Dwalin muttering imprecations about his brother’s diet, in Bilba’s front guest bedroom, and left with a cool cloth over his growing goose egg and a glass of water at his bedside.

 

Bilba set the boys to getting her stove going again and hunted up meat for Dwalin to start roasting.

 

“And how many more of you am I to expect?” she asked, then dryly observed the faintly guilty looks exchanged between her guests.  “I see.  And they’ll all want feeding.”

 

An obscene amount of food was put together, Bilba’s pantry fairly ransacked for the purpose, and many of the dishes were steaming on her dining table when the door went again.

 

There was something of a commotion outside, and Bilba had to step smartly back when she swung open the door and the remaining…oh, stars above, _eight_ Dwarves tumbled in a heap at her feet.  Hovering behind them on the step was Gandalf.

 

_Right._

 

“Boots off and by the door if you want dinner,” Bilba announced.  She cast Gandalf and gimleted glare.  “And afterwards you and I will be _having a chat_.”

 

Half of them ‘oooh’ed like school boys as she marched back down the hall and she heard Gandalf grumbling.  Let them.  They’d learn.

 

\---

 

If you thought getting a straight answer out of Wizards was a trial, _try getting one out of a reluctant Dwarf_ , Bilba thought crossly.

 

For some unfathomable reason none of them wanted to tell her why they were at her house, other than that Gandalf had invited them, and here they all were.  Even Dwalin and the two lads had clammed up tighter than Lobelia’s purse strings on market days and could not be prevailed upon to elaborate.

 

Bilba was getting understandably irritated again and rather missing the faithful table leg.  Her mood was not improved by the her guests talking (and shouting!) with their mouths full at dinner, Fili at one point _climbing over the table_ , and then the rather fragrant wind section performing competing solos post ale-quaffing.

 

To be fair, they put her at the head of the table and called her Mistress Baggins, served her first for her trouble, and when Balin emerged half-way through he bowed very deeply, apparently forgetting having done it the first time.  He then proceeded to cheerfully mock Dwalin for being bested by such a pretty lass heaving such an ugly table leg.  Dwalin then mocked him back for the same.

 

“Well if you will go about calling on ladies at such unsuitable hours, you should be prepared for consequences,” Bilba sniffed and went back to delicately eating her fish while the table exploded with hilarity around her.

 

They insisted on cleaning up after themselves – which they did in typically rowdy Dwarf fashion – and gave poor Bilba heart palpitations, watching her grandmother’s china go flying through the air, while the whole horrid lot sang –

 

_“Blunt the knives, bend the forks,_

_Smash the bottles and burn the corks_

_Chip the glasses and crack the plates_

_That's what Mistress Baggins hates!”_

 

“I’m going to murder all of them with that blasted table leg,” Bilba said through her fingers to Gandalf, hardly able to look.

 

Of course when she did look it was to see her favourite serving dish go pitching past.  In a fit of terror she managed to get a startled Bofur in a headlock and was dragging him to the dining table to give them all a good shouting at, when Gandalf said, “Oh Bilba, no, dear, look!”

 

The song had concluded and there were her dishes, neatly stacked and sparkling.  The rest of the Dwarves burst into laughter and applause and Bilba realised she still had her arm clamped around Bofur.

 

“Oh…oh!  I, erm, sorry,” she said, blinking owlishly and releasing Bofur, who staggered dramatically back against the wall, grinning and re-settling his ridiculous woolly hat.  “I – well.  Thank you.  For doing the dish-”

 

There was another knock at the door.  The whole collection of previously jovial Dwarves were suddenly still, as though bolted to her polished floor, their smiles fallen and their big voices hushed.

 

Bilba frowned around at them.  What on earth…?

 

“He’s here,” Gandalf said into the sudden hush.

 

Bilba looked around at them, slowly raising one curious eyebrow.  “Err, sorry.  Who’s here?” she stage-whispered.

 

\----

 

Thorin Oakenshield was yet another Dwarf.  And, at the same time, not yet another Dwarf – there was something marking him out from his kin, though Bilba caught some resemblance between Fili and Kili and he.  While the rest of the night-time rabble were loud and joyful and brash, Thorin was quiet and reserved and solemn.

 

Also handsome, but that was by-the-by and not entirely relevant.  If anything, it made Bilba more suspicious of him, and quite rightly, when he said:

 

“So this is the Hobbit,” and then gave her the sort of top-to-toe look that those ill-mannered loutish Bree Hobbit lads liked to level at Shire lasses on market days.  “More a…”

 

He trailed off, frowning over her shoulder.

 

(Unbeknownst to Bilba, Fili and Kili had slipped behind her and were frantically signalling to their uncle in _iglishmêk_ , which, in their panic, had them using the signs for _‘no, no, no!’_ and _‘hammer head!’_ and _‘fire!’_ and _‘imminent cave-in, flee with all haste!’_ )

 

“Thorin!” Dwalin and Balin cried, coming over and clasping arms with him and clapping him on the back. 

 

“I see you have met our gracious host!” said Balin.

 

(“Whatever you do,” growled Dwalin in Khuzdul, “do not wind her up.”)

 

“I have not yet been properly introduced,” Thorin said, frowning.

 

(‘What?’ he signed.  ‘Why?  She is so small.’

 

‘So are bees.’)

 

“Ah,” said Gandalf, “well allow me.  Bilba, this is Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of our little Company.  Thorin, this is Bilba Baggins, of Bag End.”

 

“Wielder of the Mighty Iron Leg!” called Bofur from the dining room.

 

“Oh honestly!” Bilba said, throwing her hands up.

 

Fili and Kili started giggling behind her.

 

“Iron…leg?” asked Thorin, uncertain.

 

“It was a misunderstanding,” said Bilba.

 

“Well, I suppose you could call it that,” Balin said, smiling.

 

“I was knocked unconscious and knitted into a chair,” Dwalin growled indignantly.

 

“ _Crocheted_ ,” Fili and Kili corrected, grinning at Bilba when they got there before her.

 

“Cro- isn’t that a game with mallets?” Thorin said, becoming increasingly lost.

 

“Aye!” bellowed Bofur, still in the dining room.  “A fine game – if you’ve got the balls for it!”

 

“That is it,” Bilba said, rolling up her sleeves and marching off down the hall, her face thunderous.  “ _Mister Bofur_!”

 

She rounded the corner and moments later there was a yelp and uproarious laughter from the rest of the company.

 

“I think,” Thorin said, staring down the hall, “that you had better start from the beginning.”

 

\---

 

Having subdued Bofur – who didn’t have the sense to stop grinning like a loon from where he had been neatly pinned through the sleeves to a dinning chair with Bilba’s knitting needles – Bilba located some leftover stew and dumplings for Thorin and renewed the candle stubs around the table.

 

And then:

 

“They say this quest is ours and ours alo-”

 

“Quest?” said Bilba sharply, manners deserting her.  “ _What_ quest?”  She turned narrowed eyes on Gandalf.  “What _quest_?”

 

“Mebbe,” Balin said, “we should wait for your husband to get back…although it is getting rather late…”

 

“What husband?” demanded Bilba.  “I don’t have a husband!”

 

“A brother then?” suggested Nori.

 

“Only child!”

 

“Live in cousin?” asked Dori

 

“No!”

 

“…live in lover?” Bofur interjected, eyebrows a-waggle.

 

“Oh do shut up!  Look, you great pack of lunatics, there is no one living in this Hobbit hole but me, and it’s been that way since my parents passed.  Now for goodness sake, Gandalf,” she said, turning to the Wizard, “would you please explain what is going on?”

 

“My dear Hobbit,” said Gandalf, “we were endeavouring to…”

 

And it was then that Bilba learnt about a key and a map, a stolen treasure in a lonely mountain and…

 

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Bilba, spotting the familiar symbol on the map, “that this is about the dragon?”

 

“Well,” said Balin, “yes.”

 

Bilba rolled her eyes.  “You might have said so earlier!”

 

And then she got to her feet and stumped off down the hall to the coat rack. 

 

The Dwarves sat in startled silence for moment.  Ori said hesitantly, “does that mean she’s not coming?”

 

There was a series of thumps and clangs, and Bilba put her head around the corner again, frowning at them.  “Well, get a move on.  We don’t have all night, you know.  You’ll need to put your boots and coats back on.”

 

Puzzled, the Company got to their feet and followed her.

 

Gandalf found her standing at what he had assumed was the door to a hall cupboard (green, with a dainty floral border), carrying a lantern

 

“Bilba, my dear, I can’t fault your…unexpected enthusiasm, but…er…well, you haven’t even packed yet.”

 

Bilba paused, frowning and turned to look up at the Wizard.  “Packed?” she said.  “What on earth would I want to pack for?”

 

In the hallway, the Dwarves were all puzzledly putting on their cloaks and coats and hoods. 

 

“All bundled up?” she said briskly, over the baffled muttering.  “Good, come along then.”

 

“But…” Fili said hesitantly, “Mistress, the door is that way…”  He pointed to the front door over his shoulder.

 

“Wrong door.”  She rapped sharply on the small green door, then swung it wide and stepped inside. 

“Mind your step,” she called over her shoulder.  “We had a little flood last month, and some of the boards haven’t all dried out.”

 

The guests peered in over her shoulder.

 

Well.

 

That was unexpected.

 

Instead of the anticipated hall closet, there were three short walls painted the same cream as the rest of the hole, and no floor.   Where the floor might have been at the point of the Hobbit hole’s construction, there was now a staircase spiralling down and down, further into the hill.  As they descended the walls stopped being packed earth lined with board and plaster and paint, and became a stone passage, cruder than the Dwarves were used to, but worn smooth with age and tidily whitewashed to brighten it.  There were sconces at regular intervals, and small flames danced there – Bilba had been lighting them on her way down.

 

Eventually, the passage opened out and the staircase ended in a cavern with a respectable thirty foot ceiling.  From what they could see in the flicker of Bilba’s lantern, the cavern was a natural beauty; there were waved limestone formations in cream and ochre, glittering with crystalized minerals and a faint sheen of descending groundwater.  Against the wall adjacent to the stairs there was an alcove sheltered by a slight overhang.  It was dryer here, and the floor covered by soft sand.  There was an armchair and a flat topped stone before it, and on the stone was a doily, a mug and saucer of thick china, and a small wooden box.  The box revealed itself to be carrying a stone and flint, and the alcove a fireplace as Bilba set down her lantern and lit a fire in the recess.  There were some dark smudges from previous fires around the alcove, and the flames spat in the damp, but there must have been a chimney going all the way up through the hill to Bag End, because the when it really got going, there was hardly a whisper of smoke. 

 

The firelight showed up the rest of the walls, the breadth of the cavern, and the delicate, lacelike formations covering it’s ceiling, like veils in a lady’s boudoir.

 

It also shone directly onto a high ridge opposite - or was is a tumble of stone? – it was hard to tell, but there was a slight textual difference, and the stone was greyer.  There was moss growing in rich green swaths along the lips various crevices, and a few patches of flowering lichen.

 

Which was odd, for a cavern that clearly never saw sunlight.

 

Beyond this pile, which looked to be about half the height of the cavern, water could be heard lapping – so maybe the pile was built to dam back an underground lake…

 

(…still didn’t explain the flowers.)

 

The Dwarves filed in, with Gandalf bringing up the rear.  He stopped and stared around the cavern, clearly surprised. 

 

“My goodness me,” he murmured.  “Bilba, whenever did you find this?”

 

“Oh ages ago,” said Bilba blithely.  She was fussily dusting sand from the armchair and angling it to face the rest of the cavern.  “Do sit down, Balin.  Most of that shaft we came down is natural.  The earth on top had gotten wet and rotted the floorboards at some point, in that hall closet.  Then the earth sank away, and well.”  She smiled ruefully.  “I was wee mite… There was a game of hide and seek, you see, just mother and I one afternoon, and I hid in that closet.  The next thing I knew, the boards had collapsed under me and I was falling in the dark.  Tumbled down the slope and here I was.”

 

“This is all very interesting,” said Thorin, in a tone that clearly said it was not, “but what does this have to do with a dragon?”

 

Gandalf was frowning at her, however, and said, “Bilba.  There would not have been stairs when you fell…”

 

She smiled.  “Well, no.  We put them in afterwards, of course.”

 

“Of course.”  He stepped slowly forwards, those ancient eyes intent.  “But my dear Hobbit, if there were no stairs… _how did you get out_?”

 

Bilba blinked at him.  “Lea helped me.”

 

From the pile of mossy stone, there was the rasp of shifting sand and the grumble of moving rock.  A long, alto hum filled the cool air, and a great big angular shape like the head of an enormous arrow lifting from the far side of the pile.

 

It split in one spot high up and became an eye like a mountain pool under a summer sky.

 

It split low down and then there was a jaw, filled with rows of ivory teeth.

 

The pile of stone flexed with in drawn breath, nostrils flaring, and the alto hum became a voice that said, sleepily,

 

“Mmmmm, did someone say my name?”

 

“Dragon,” Thorin said blankly.  And then, enlivening, “DRAGON!”

 

All at once, the Dwarves flattened themselves against the wall furthest from the great reptile, reaching for what weapons they still had on their person (which was not a lot) and suddenly there were brandished a great many small knives that mostly only got exercised when there was fruit to be cut or pony feet to pick out.

 

The dragon blinked at them, and appeared puzzled.

 

“What a great deal of noise,” it said, perhaps a little resentfully.  “Bilba dear, what is all this about?  Who are these young people?”

 

“Uninvited guests,” said Bilba, scowling at the Dwarves, rather like a maiden aunt who is being embarrassed by the behaviour of a collection of errant nephews.  “They came on dragon business.”

 

Slowly, like the beginning of a rockslide, the dragon turned its great body.  There was the same whispering, grinding noise as it uncoiled and re-settled facing them.  Its triangular face bore a line of spurs that became spines at the top of its neck and ran the length of the back and down the whisking tail.  While most of its pelt was the same marbled basalt grey, limestone cream and clay ochre, the under parts of the throat and belly were paler still; an even, faintly glittering pale grey, like the quartz and silica sand that lines mountain rivers and lakes, and makes their waters appear so richly blue.  In fact all of her glittered a little, as though the limestone cave had left a veil of crystals over the crags and angles of the dragon’s strange stony body, dappled green by the mosses and lichens.

 

The Dwarves could only watch as it folded its enormous wings against its sides, its great blue-green eyes looking between poor tiny Bilba and their Wizard.

 

“I see,” the beast said, dryly.  “Bilba, my darling, these gentlemen appear to be Dwarvish in origin, yes?”

 

“They are.”

 

“Hmmm.”  The creature turned its head to Gandalf (who is must be said, appeared rather more surprised than alarmed) and said, “You, however, are not a Hobbit or a Dwarf, Mister…?”

 

“Gandalf,” the Wizard said, and he –

 

He bowed.

 

“Gandalf,” Nori hissed.  “Gandalf, don’t look in its eyes, it’ll enchant you!”

 

“Cast a spell, cast a spell!” Gloin hissed.

 

“Oh, are you a Wizard?” asked the dragon, who apparently had excellent hearing.

 

“That I am, Madam.  They call me Gandalf the Grey.”

 

“The Grey?” The dragon made a noise that in another, smaller, less dangerous being, might have been called intrigued.  “Goodness, how interesting!  Do you know, I believe I have met two of your fellows – I encountered two Blue Wizards on my journey here, some time ago… though dashed if I can remember their names at the moment.”  It sighed.  “Isn’t age funny?”

 

This…

 

Was not expected dragon behaviour.

 

Thorin thought this was the time to demand answers, since they did not appear in imminent danger of being eaten.

 

“Who are you?” he shouted at the creature.  “Where did you come from?  We were told,” and here he glared at Gandalf, “that this was a safe place!”

 

“A better question might be where your manners have got to, young Master Dwarf,” the dragon said, and to the Dwarves collective alarm, it stretched out its long neck until its head was level with Thorin.  “But if it will ease your anxiety, I am Lady Lea Green, lately of the Shire.  And you?”

 

Thorin, summoning the strength of his ancestors, straightened his shoulders and growled.  “I am Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror.”

 

He stared down the length of the beasts snout, glaring into its drowning pool eyes and-

 

“Lovely to meet you,” said Lady Green, and settled back.  “Might I know the names of the rest of your company?  Only it is very late, and I do have a morning appointment tomorrow…”

 

“But!” Kili burst out, “But you’re a _dragon_!”

 

Lady Green blinked slowly at him.  “Yes dear, for some time now,” she remarked, the corner of her mouth quirking.

 

“But…aren’t…aren’t you going to eat us?  Or…”

 

“Kili!” Bilba said, sounding shocked, rather like one might if a child started discussing bodily functions at a Mayoral dinner.

 

“I do not believe that Lady Green is that variety of drake,” Gandalf said, stepping over and putting a hand on the young Dwarf’s shoulder.  “Nor, I believe, does she have the same interests as the majority of dragons we are familiar with.”  It was very nearly a question, and he threw an enquiring look at the dragon.

 

Lady Green said, “Hmm?  Oh you mean the _hoarding tendency_.”  Her eyes narrowed, and her thorny brow contracted in a reptilian frown.  “I don’t see the appeal, really.  Never a fan of clutter.  And in any case, it necessitates a life of crime.”  The frown deepened.  “We don’t go in for that sort of thing around here.”

 

It was… a very Hobbitish thing to say, and in fact Bilba was standing at Lady Green’s shoulder nodding.

 

Which made the next bit little awkward:

 

“Well what are we supposed to do about a burglar _now_!” demanded Dori, and threw the whole Company into uproar.

 

“Yes, Gandalf, you promised us a burglar!”

 

“A first class one!”

 

“Where is he?  He can’t be here!”

 

“ _He_?” the Wizard said.  “Who said anything about my burglar being a ‘he’?”

 

“Who said anything about a _burglar_?” Bilba wanted to know, and then blinked in surprise when they all swung around to look at her.

 

“I rather think they mean you, dear,” Lady Green murmured.

 

“You cannot be serious, Gandalf,” said Thorin.

 

“And why not!” the Wizard wanted to know.  “Hobbits can move very quietly, when they want to.  And while the scent of Man and Dwarf is known to him, the scent of Hobbit is unknown to Smaug.”

 

“Smaug!” Lady Green boomed, sending everyone back against the far wall.  “Your dragon business is with _Smaug_?”

 

“Er yes,” said Gandalf.

 

“He took our mountain,” said Dwalin.

 

“And we want it back,” said Thorin.

 

“No,” growled Lady Green, eyes flashing, hard and bright as gems, “you don’t get back a mountain from a dragon with a burglar.  What you get from a dragon with a burglar is _treasure_!”

 

She swept her wings forward and gathered Bilba to her breast, enfolding her protectively.  The startled Hobbit looked up at the dragon, bewildered.  “Lea?  Lea, what’s the matter?”

 

“If you think,” Her Ladyship growled, “ _for one minute_ , that you can take my Bilba away to face that murdering wretch and get your gold back for you from under his smouldering nose, then you have another think coming!”

 

Bilba stared at Lea.

 

Bilba looked at the Dwarves.

 

Bilba looked at Gandalf.

 

Bilba connected several dots and said, pink with outrage:

 

“YOU ALL THOUGHT I _MARRIED_ A _BURGLAR_?”

 

\---

 

“I do apologize for this, Lady Green,” Balin was saying, still ensconced in the downstairs armchair.  Of the Dwarves, he seemed to have adapted to the idea of Lea the quickest.

 

The dragon huffed, sand scattering out from where her chin was rested on her folded foreclaws.  “It is not I that need an apology, Master Balin,” she said, not ungently. 

 

“Yes,” Balin said in kind, “and when any of us are allowed to approach, I will be offering my sincere sorries to her, but, as she has locked the door…”

 

“Mmmm,” Lea hummed, amused.

 

“Tonight seems full of unfortunate misunderstandings.”

 

“Avoidable ones,” she murmured.  “If a certain Wizard were not prone to theatrics…”  She cast a sly glance at Gandalf.

 

The Grey shifted uncomfortably on his seat.  “It was not my intension to obfuscate,” he said.  “It did not occur to me that you would all be expecting a male burglar!  In my experience, why, women can do as well as burglars as their male counterparts.  And consider Bilba’s actions on meeting Dwalin at the door unexpectedly – you cannot claim her incapable of defending herself.”

 

“That is not the issue,” Thorin ground out.  He was standing by the fireplace, gazing into the flames with his arms leant against the mantle.  Lea appreciated the drama of it, very picturesque.  “She is still no burglar.” He turned to them, crossing his arms.  “There is no point to this quest if we have not means of retrieving what we set out for in the first place.”

 

“You might attempt it yourself,” Lea said, feeling waspish.  She would not presume to make the decision for Bilba, but neither would she encourage involvement in this ridiculous venture. 

 

“That, too, would be doomed to fail,” Balin said.  “Smaug would know our scent, if indeed he still lives, and we would be collectively incinerated.”

 

“Incinerated,” Lea muttered darkly.  “My Bilba could be _incinerated_.”

 

“No, she couldn’t,” Thorin growled, “because she is not coming.”

 

“Well, you know my opinion on the subject,” Gandalf said, getting slowly to his feet, “but don’t you think we ought to ask the potential-burglar herself?”

 

\----

 

Bilba was sulking.

 

Even she couldn’t deny it.  There was a locked door between her and the Company, and though she’d not even a cup of tea to keep her company, she refused to exit her room, wallowing in her outrage.

 

 _Let them stew_ , she thought, wrathful. 

 

The whole day had been a disaster from that first cup of tea out of doors. 

 

“I ought to trample the old coot’s hat for dragging me into all this nonsense,” she muttered to the flames in her bedroom’s small fireplace.  “Burglar indeed!”

 

(Carefully ignored, there stirred in her breast a seed of something her mother would have readily recognised; something bright and sharp and fickle, something like anticipation and joy, something a little reckless and wicked.  Something adventurous.)

 

“Mistress Baggins?” Ori was tentatively knocking on her door.  “We don’t mean to bother, miss, but…Dori has made tea, and we brought rock cakes with us.”

 

Bilba stared determinedly into the fire.

 

“Miss…”

 

How could they possibly ask this of her?  The wild was no place for gentlefolk like Bilba!  There were…untold terrors out there, awful evil things that would consider a Hobbit like her barely a mouthful.

 

And what was an ugly iron table leg against a fire-breathing dragon…

 

Oh.

 

OH.

 

Well – that was an idea.

 

“Miss – oooh!” said Ori, startled as Bilba flung back the bolt and whipped open her door  Fili and Kili were there too, hovering over his shoulder, looking anxious but trying to hide it.  “H-hello.”

 

“Hello, Ori, Fili, Kili.  There was some mention of tea and cake?”

 

“Yes!  Yes, miss, everyone’s in the parlour…”

 

She let them lead her away.

 

She let them serve her with her own cups and saucers.

 

She let them talk, and talk over each other; she smiled a small smile and nodded.

 

She found herself frozen in her pantry, retrieving biscuits, while the sound of their voices found her; the rising hum, the baritone poetry by the light of her fire, painting pictures on the unseeing surface of her eyes: the Mountain filled with gold, the trees consumed by flame, the shadow of the greedy monster.  She closed her eyes and told her heart to settle.

 

She let the night draw to a close, and said to Gandalf, firmly, “I will have to think on it.”

 

“I will understand entirely if you are still cross with me, my dear.”

 

Bilba smiled and handed him his hat.  “I will need to think.”

 

She watched as they made their way down the road to their lodgings, rowdy even now, at this late hour.

 

Then she gathered a blanket and her lantern, and made her way back down to the cavern.

 

“Lea?  Are you still up?” she called.

 

The fire in the hearth was only embers now, winking redly in the dark, like bright eyes.  The dragon’s sides glittered in the swing of Bilba’s light, almost indistinguishable from the cavern walls in that still moment between one breath and the next.  Her eyes were luminous; water lit by moonglow.

 

“I am,” Lea murmured.  She studied Bilba silently as the Hobbit settled herself in the armchair, facing her friend.  “You have been thinking.”

 

“I have.”

 

“About the quest.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Lea lifted her head, blinking, startled by what she saw in Bilba’s small, up-turned face.  “You want to go.”

 

Bilba attempted a smile, small and rueful.  “ _Want_ is a very strong word for it, dearest.  I would like to go…not for the sake of the thing itself, but…” She looked down at her hands, sighing and turning her mother’s silver rings, the little stones glinting.  “But you and I are very comfortable here, aren’t we?  Always have been, barring minor upset,” read ‘cousin Lobelia’, “and I expect we always will be.”

 

“And yet,” said Lea.

 

“Oh Lea, I am sorry,” Bilba said, caught between laughter and wretchedness. “I don’t…well, I almost don’t know what has come over me.”

“Oh don’t you?” Lea said drily.  “It begins with tee and ends with ook.”

 

Bilba rolled her eyes.

 

“And you needn’t make that face, my petal,” Lea said, resettling her wings and curling the soft corners of her mouth in a dragonish smirk.  “Really, one or both of us should have seen this coming.  If it wasn’t a quest to Foreign Parts it would likely be a sudden interest in racing ponies, or a scandalously younger lover-”

 

_“Lea!”_

 

“Or setting off to Buckland to investigate those rumours of walking trees,” Lea finished, shamelessly.  Bilba was looking a little pink.  “In any case, if I have my way – which I intend to – you will not be facing any dragon other than myself.”

 

“…you plan to come too?” Bilba said.

 

“Of course.”  Lea raised one thorny brow ridge.  “Don’t you want me to?”

 

“Well, I…” Bilba smiled lopsidedly.  “I rather thought I would have to convince you.”

 

“Pish-tosh!” scoffed Lea.  “As if I would let you out of my sight for a moment going anywhere with that lot.  Your parents would rise from the grave and slay me on the spot.  Well, your mother might.”  Her great head tilted, curious.  “You said you would not be going for the thing itself; what do you mean?”

 

“I mean,” Bilba floundered.  “I – I have a home, Lea.  I have a home I have had all my life.  But Fili and Kili and young Ori…Dwalin and Balin and all their kith and kin…the Mountain was their home.  Fili and Kili are heirs to the place, and they’ve never even clapped eyes on it.  It must be so hard to be so displaced, for so long, and so cruelly.

 

“If…if the Shire was burnt, and my home caved in, and we did not have you to defend us – Lea, if that happened, I should want someone to be kind to us.  I should want someone to take our side, and help us put our place to rights.”

 

She looked earnestly up at her dragon, and her greatest and oldest friend.

 

“Lea…how could we say no?”

 

Lea leant down, reaching out her foreclaws and gently gathering her charge close to her face to touch the tip of her muzzle to Bilba’s forehead in a kiss.  Her eyes were full of love.

 

“My dear, dear girl.  We shall not have to.”

 

\---


	2. Water Safety and Dreams of Great Big Fish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they were much younger, she and Lobelia had argued about this while their families were picnicking by the water; Bilba had expressed herself on the subject and Lobelia, with her awful over enunciated vowels and her upturned nose, had responded, “because, it is not dignified, Bilba. And besides, drowning is so much more romantic. Then you can be remembered as a waterlily maid, like in the novels.”
> 
> Bilba was later caught thigh-deep in the lake, covered in waterlilies, singing a dirge in a thin voice while her Lobelia and her friends shrieked in terror and attempted to hoist themselves into the nearest tree.

_ 2 – Water Safety and Dreams of Great Big Fish _

 

The next morning was as clear as the last, and Bilba wasted no time in putting on a small first breakfast for herself and then, on a rather astute hunch, setting out a rather larger second breakfast for a certain collection of late-comers.

 

And come they did; evidently, someone – likely Balin or Gandalf – had remembered Lea’s mention of a morning appointment and dissuaded Thorin and Co from setting off without their potential Burglar.  They showed up just as the second batch of bacon was starting to sizzle, and fell on the food like a troop starving.

 

“Is there any beer, Mistress?” Bofur wanted to know.

 

Bilba wrinkled her nose at her, “Not with breakfast, surely.”

 

“Aye, well, maybe not with Hobbit breakfasts then.”

 

Bilba shook her head – beer with breakfast! – and caught sight of the kitchen clock.

 

“Oh!  Oh that can’t be the time!”  She threw off her apron and bolted for her bedroom, leaving her guests baffled in her wake.

 

“Now what?” Nori said, pausing mid bite, and then nearly dropped his toast when Bilba soared past in her –

 

In her _under things_.

 

“What on…?”

 

“So sorry!” Bilba called, dashing down the hallway towards the little green door, “I know this is terribly rude of me, but I’ll be late for our appointment!”

 

There was a moment of stunned silence after the little door slammed behind her.

 

Then, as one, the whole Company crashed to its feet and trundled after her.

 

When they arrived in the cavern, it was to see Bilba standing comfortably on Lea’s back, hanging onto one of her spines (which was nearly as tall as the Hobbit).  The dragon was up to her belly in the water of the underground lake that made up the other half of the cavern.  The water was clear enough to see her legs and the shifting stones under to massive feet, but at the far end, at the furthest point from the hearth, there was only shadow under the rippling surface.

 

Lea was wading further and further into the lake, toward the shadowy end.  She and Bilba were chatting:

 

“You rather took your time, my dear.”

 

“Well, it rather takes time, getting breakfast ready for that many Dwarves.”

 

“Heavens, are they all still here?”

 

“No, no, they left and came back – honestly, Lea, where on earth would I have put them all?” she laughed.

 

“Well I can think of at least one you might have tucked in with y-”

 

Bilba at this point noticed their descending audience.  “Thorin!” she said loudly, and Lea turned to look at them.  “What are you all doing down here?”

 

“This is your morning appointment?”  Thorin asked, frowning.

 

“Of course not!” Bilba said, gesturing down the cavern.  “We’re _on our way_ to the appointment.”  At their baffled looks she added, “There’s a tunnel; we swim down it to Bywater Pool.”

 

“And what is it that you do at Bywater Pool?” Thorin wanted to know, folding his arms.

 

Something cheeky and Tookish took hold, and poor Bilba found herself grinning at him, saying, “Come and see.”

 

He stood on the shore, watching her for a moment.  He didn’t smile, but there was something about his eyes, a brightness that had not been there previously.

 

To the startlement of his compatriots he began to remove his vambraces, then his belt, his mail and surcoat, followed by his boots and thick stockings.  The last to go was the shirt; Bilba saw him hesitant a moment, cutting a look to her –

 

“Do make haste, Master Oakenshield, if you are coming,” she said.  “We are late as it is!”

 

And there went the shirt.

 

Bilba was immediately thankful she was half submerged in cold water, and hung onto Lea’s spine a little tighter.  Thorin waded and then swam to them, powerful shoulders working, and took hold of a spine several feet back from Bilba.

 

Bilba took a breath and heard Thorin do the same.

 

“We will see you at Bywater,” Lea said, and sank like a stone.

 

\---

 

Hobbits, generally, are not given to swimming.  Not for lack of bodies of water, but because it can lead to a state of undress that some circles consider unseemly.

 

It was this very attitude (held by a certain cousin previously mentioned) that had Bilba flying in the face of it – she was, after all, a practical sort of person.  It made no sense to her to distain a skill that could save you, just because you had to practice it in specially made underthings. 

 

When they were much younger, she and Lobelia had argued about this while their families were picnicking by the water; Bilba had expressed herself on the subject and Lobelia, with her awful over enunciated vowels and her upturned nose, had responded, “because, it is not _dignified_ , Bilba.  And besides, drowning is so much more _romantic_.  Then you can be remembered as a _waterlily maid_ , like in the _novels_.”

 

Bilba was later caught thigh-deep in the lake, covered in waterlilies, singing a dirge in a thin voice while her Lobelia and her friends shrieked in terror and attempted to hoist themselves into the nearest tree.

 

She had been taken home post-haste, her parents threatening dire punishments within hearing of their relatives.

 

What actually happened was that Bilba recounted the tale and she and her mother fell about laughing while her father continued to mutter imprecations and pick bits of water lily out of his daughter’s hair.

 

When questioned about her lack of fear for entering the lake, Bilba had shrugged and announced she knew how to swim.

 

“Good heavens child,” declared her father, “who on earth could have taught you?  And without our noticing?”

 

“Lea taught me.”

 

“Ah,” said Belladonna.  “That explains it.”

 

\---

 

Thorin watched as they submerged, and something odd happened to their Hobbit.

 

He himself had never been to the edge of the earth, there the ocean began, but he had heard stories and seen pictures brought by traders and story tellers.  He knew about seals, with their slick pelts and fat bodies, but he could not fathom how such a rotund, ungainly creature on land could become a dancer under water.

 

And yet.

 

Fully submerged by water and Mistress Baggins lifted her hairy feet from the dragon’s back, her sturdy legs bunching beneath her.  Her back level with the sky, her hair and clothes billowing around her as she darted forward, swinging nimbly from spine to spine to cling to Lea’s neck.  She looked over her shoulder at him, grinning through her swirling mane of curls.

 

Thorin did not know what to do.

 

In the next moment, he felt the dragon’s muscles shift under his feet and her wings contracting tight to her sides.

 

He braced himself just in time.  Lady Green suddenly shot forward into the dark mouth of the tunnel.  The water rushed past them at an amazing rate, and he thought they must be travelling the fastest he had ever been in his life.  No pony or even a horse could possibly run as fast as this dragon was swimming.

 

He clung to the spine, his eyes stinging and his breath burning in his lungs, small bubbles forced from his nose; faster and faster, unable to make out Lady Green or Mistress Baggins in the dark water…

 

There was a muffled roar and a confusing moment when water and sky seemed to collide, and then Thorin found himself dragged free of the…of the lake.

 

This was Bywater.

 

He wiped water from his eyes and beard, flung his hair back from his face and took in his surroundings.

 

He was still on Lady Green’s back, sitting now, one hand on the spine.  Around him, the day was still bright and warm, a light breeze occasionally ruffling the small lake.  This was bordered by reeds and cattails, amongst which he could see several waterfowl eyeing them resentfully.  Some were still quacking indignantly and a pair of large white swans were resettling their plumage with injured majesty.

 

Feeling less stunned, and with his ears finally free of water, he could hear the high excited voices of a number of Hobbits nearby.  He turned and spied them on the farther shore; a cluster of adults and children, the little ones all in underthings, just as Mistress Baggins was, while the parents or older siblings or uncles and aunts all held towelling cloths and clothing.  Some of them were sitting on picnic rugs and had brought food with them.  Many were waving to Lady Green and Mistress Baggins, who waved back and drifted closer, until the dragon’s feet touched the sandy shallows.

 

“Master Thorin, unless you are joining our class this morning would you care to disembark here?” Lady Green said.  It was clearly not a suggestion.  Thorin rather felt like he had as a very small Dwarf, being gently commanded to leave the room by his grandmother before she tore strips out of misbehaving courtiers.

 

Thorin thanked her and slid down her side and into the waist-deep water.  To his surprise, his nephews and several of the company, including Gandalf, were present at the edge of the water.  Dwalin was there, and handed him a towel that must have been collected in haste from Bag End.

 

“After last night, I should like to say nothing can take me unawares anymore,” his cousin muttered, watching the Hobbit children splash their way over to the dragon.  “And now this.”

 

“What precisely is going on?” Thorin wanted to know.

 

“It is a swimming lesson,” Gandalf said.  He was packing his pipe and evidently preparing for a long sit.  “The Lady Green, it appears, has Very Strong Opinions on water safety.”

 

Lady Green was by this time floating on her back.  With her feet exposed above the water’s surface, Thorin could see the webbing between her toes, each one tipped with a wickedly sharp talon.  The children were lying on her chest and stomach, demonstrating their overarm stroke and kicking with their furred feet.  As they watched, the dragon sank several feet into the water so that the children could start swimming.  There was laughter and much splashing, and several small people had to be caught like minnows and deposited back in place.  Mistress Baggins swam easily amongst them, gently correcting their form and dispensing encouragement.

 

None of the Dwarves had seen anything like it. 

 

“It’s like a school room in the water,” Ori said.  He looked nervous but also like he was this-close to skinning his clothes off and getting in too.  Thorin was abruptly reminded of how young Ori was.  Fili and Kili too.

 

They stayed for the duration of the lesson.  A hobbit woman about Mistress Baggins’ age invited them to share the sandwiches she and her beau had brought.  Thorin half listened as Ori chatted about calligraphy and local poetry mores with Primula and Drogo, watching the swimming lesson and wondering what the Company had gotten themselves into:

 

It was one thing to journey to the Mountain where there lives a potential dragon, but quite another to involve ones self with a very live one and their small companion.  It now occurred to Thorin that if Mistress Baggins did accompany them as their burglar, and then did not return to Bag End and its very large other occupant, that the Lady Green may hold the surviving members of the Company responsible.  She might do so rightly.  If that, Mahal willing, includes he and his nephews, then the line of Durin may swap one fiery calamity for another.

 

The difficulty was they were running out of time.  They did not have the funds to tarry longer and unless he had the justification of the Quest it was not fair to keep his kinsfolk from their homes and their trades, nor to keep his nephews from their mother.  If they did not have a burglar they had no way to get under the nose of Smaug, and they did not have time to look for a replacement for Mistress Baggins.

 

Thorin did not like where this was going.

 

He especially did not like it when Mistress Baggins and the Lady Green climbed from the lake and Mistress Baggins, ringing water from her mop of curls said, “I do hope we have enough time to pack sufficiently.  Oh Lea, I will have to talk to Mr Gamgee about caring for the garden while we are abroad –”

 

“We?” said Balin, as startled as the rest of the Company.

 

“Oh, of course, I didn’t get around to telling you at breakfast,” said Mistress Baggins.  “Lea and I will both be coming to the Mountain.”

 

The Dwarves could only stare at the Hobbit and Dragon, some of them with their mouths agape, the sheer logistics of such a journey boggling them.

 

“How delightful,” said Gandalf, grinning through his beard.

 

\---

 

Being trapped between a rock and a hard place is not usually somewhere a Dwarf finds themselves – they’re rather good with both rocks and hard places – but Thorin found himself in one now, and deeply unwilling to argue with this particular hard place, or her small rock.

 

On Gandalf’s advice he agreed to include both Mistress Baggins and – Mahal help him – Lady Green.

 

This of course lead to some confusion of their mode of transport.

 

“We are not _flying_ there,” Thorin said, setting his jaw and scowling at the Company gathered in the courtyard behind the Green Dragon Inn.  The Dwarves were settled on the benches with beer (“It’s not even morning tea,” Bilba said, nose wrinkling) and Gandalf with a summer cider, while Mistress Baggins and Lady Green sipped ginger beer – Mistress Baggins from a tall glass, Lady Green from a painted half-barrel.

 

Kili and Fili set up immediate protest.   “But _why not_ , Uncle?”

 

“We would get there much quicker,” Nori put in.

 

“Quicker is not the point,” Balin put in, “if arrive on the back of a dragon, the locals are going to see and there will be quite the uproar.  We don’t want to do anything to alert Smaug to our approach.”

 

“And quite apart from Smaug,” Thorin muttered, “there will be others with their eyes on that mountain and its insides.  If they see Dwarves heading there they might also take their chance.”

 

Lady Green lay against the left wall of the courtyard, elegant as an enormous cat, with Mistress Baggins perched on her shoulder.  The pair of them had so far only watched the Company argue.

 

“There is also the matter of whether I want to carry you or not,” Lady Green murmured, and Thorin watched as most of his kin went red at the ears.

 

“Ah, right, well…”

 

“Er…”

 

“Sorry, Lady Green.”

 

“I don’t mind in a pinch,” she amended, “but we don’t have the equipment needed for me to carry the whole collection of you and my Bilba for any great distance.  And I rather prefer to walk.”

 

Which made a sort of sense: unlike other drakes Thorin had seen regrettably up close or depicted in books and scrolls, Lady Green was six-limbed.  She had four strongly muscled legs that tucked underneath her, again in the manner of a cat, as well as bony span of her two wings that lay folded along either side of her spine.

 

“Equipment?”

 

“We have a sort of harness for when I go up with Lea,” Mistress Baggins explained.  She was neat as a pin again in a pretty cotton dress embroidered with cornflowers at the hem and collar, her hair put up in a braided crown, hands folded primly in her lap.  Every inch a proper house-hobbit, with the exception of those shrewd eyes.  If she weren’t perched on the back of a great thorny dragon it would be difficult to imagine her flying on one.  “We’ll bring it of course, just in case.”

 

“What about the ponies?” Bofur said, wiping beer out of his beard.  “And Gandalf’s horse?  How will they like traveling with a dragon, even a nice one?”

 

“Thank you, dear,” Lady Green said mildly.  The soft corner of her mouth was curling in amusement.

 

It turned out not to be an issue.

 

\---

 

The list of things Bofur never thought he would see was growing.

 

Added now to this list was the sight of a thirty foot long dragon standing nose to nose with a four foot tall pony while the pair of them communed on some deep animal level.  The rest of their horseflesh stood about watching this tableau or grazing idly. 

 

One of them yawned expansively while Mistress Baggins braided her mane.

 

“This is…not what I was expectin’,” Bofur said.

 

“Agreed,” Balin murmured, staring.

 

“Well,” Gandalf commented cheerfully, “that solves that problem!  Shall we be off?”

 

\---

 

After a few tearful farewells from a few of Bilba’s closer cousins and their children, many of whom were part of Lea’s swimming classes and climbed all over the dragon to fearlessly put their tiny chubby arms around her neck and kiss angular face.  In fact the community seemed rather more saddened by the departure of ‘their dragon’ than Bilba.  One small personage put a garland of daisies around one of Lady Green’s spines that stayed there until it wilted and fell apart.

 

“What I would like to know,” Oin said, the day after they set out, “is how a dragon went unnoticed in the Shire for such a great time!  And unnoticed by a Wizard, no less!  Begging your pardon, Mr Gandalf, I’m sure the circumstances are exceptional,” he added hurriedly, as the Wizard gave him a gimlet-eyed glower from under his impressive eyebrows.

 

“Most people do not notice me, even when I am above ground,” Lea said.  She had a long ponderous gait, somehow fluid despite her gravelly hide, which looked as though it should have crunched as she moved.  Bilba was settled in the still point at the base of her neck, sitting on a cushion she had made for precisely this purpose and now doubled as a pillow when they camped.  “Mainly because they are not looking for me, and, as you yourselves did upon meeting me, they mistake me for a rather large rock.”

 

“One time,” Bilba added, “she was very late home and we were worried, but it turned out that she’d fallen asleep in a field and a few children from a visiting Bree family had found her and were using her as a castle.”

 

“I had to stay still until they were called in for tea.”

 

The Dwarves were boggling again.  “You didn’t mind?”

 

“Why should I mind?  They were very sweet.”

 

The Dwarves seemed satisfied with this explanation, but Bilba had the feeling that the Wizard was not.  Though he and Lea were amicable, and took turns telling some really outlandish stories at meal times, to be outdone only by Balin at his finest, Bilba worried at some of the looks he cast at the dragon.  As though he were trying to see through her rocky pelt and see what strangeness and star-stuff made up her insides.

 

Some nights, Bilba woke briefly and could see the Wizard standing by Lea’s head, both of them in deep conversation but their voices too low for her to make out the words, only the sombre rhythm of their speech.  In the moonlight the crystalline parts of Lea’s stone coat glimmered softly, winking like distant stars, like the Wizard’s eyes under the brim of his ever present hat.

 

Each time, Bilba put her hand to Lea’s side, and she turned her great head toward the hobbit, whispering, “hush, my love, we are here.  We are safe.”

 

Each time Bilba closed her eyes again, drifting, unable to remember her unease.

 

\---

 

“Are you not hungry, Lady Green?” Kili asked.

 

They were camped on an outcropping, just finishing the evening’s rations.

 

_Honestly_ , thought Bilba, frowning over her mug of tea at the cluster of Dwarves around the campfire, it had only just occurred to them now that they had never seen Lea eat?  They had been on the road for weeks!

 

“No dear, I’m quite alright,” Lea said mildly.  She was occupied with watching the sunset behind the edges of the woods; it was rather pretty, the warm oranges and golds lingering on the bellies of scattered clouds, while above them the first stars were emerging.  The dragon’s side thrummed against Bilba’s back as she let out a thoughtful hum.  “I’m rather old you know; we don’t need much feeding.”

 

“Really?” asked Ori.

 

“Mmm.  Although, I do like a little something now and then.  At town parties Bilba’s granny used to put together the most lovely crumble, do you remember, dear?” she addressed Bilba.

 

“With the red jewel plums, yes,” Bilba said, leaning her head back against Lea’s side and closing her eyes. 

 

Granny had always made a huge pan of it just for Lea, stretching the brandied plums out with apple and delicate white peaches.  The neighbours would come by the day before to drink tea with the Baggins family and their dragon, bringing cups of brown sugar and flour or pats of ‘spare’ butter to go into the crust, so that there would be enough for Lea to get more than a mouthful.

 

“But…but what a-about meat?” Ori ventured.  Bilba didn’t miss that though nervous, he had one of his books out and was surreptitiously jotting notes when Lea spoke.

 

“Oh yes, a bit of that too,” Lea said.  “Venison is lovely when we’ve enough game about. And the Cottons do lovely beef.  Very good with wild garlic and red wine.  Although…I must admit, I do miss fish.”

 

“Fish?”

 

“Oh yes, my dears, _fish_.”  She sighed, wistful.  “When I flew over the ocean to this country, I used to find the most marvellous, most _enormous_ fishes.”

 

“Oh,” said Ori, excitedly, “like whales!”

 

“We know about whales,” Kili put in.  “Mama has a book with pictures of them.  Are they really big enough to swallow a Man whole?”

 

“Some of them,” Lea remarked drily.  “But no, these were not whales, these were proper fish.  Whales are airbreathers you know; they have their nostrils on their backs so they can breathe as they swim.  None of the ones I encountered showed any inclination towards eating people, I don’t think.”

 

“So… you didn’t eat them?”

 

“My stars no!  No, that would have been horribly rude.  They were my company as a I travelled - I met quite a few – excellent singers, thoughtful conversationalists.  No I stuck to the gilled variety and they were truly huge.”

 

Lea grinned, all teeth.

 

“Some were also big enough to consume a Man, and might have tried if they found one.  I would swoop down and swim after them, or sometimes snatch them up and eat on the wing.  But they could fight!  My goodness they could fight…”

 

Bilba had heard all of this before as a wide-eyed hobbitling, but she could see the older Dwarves slowly turning where they sat to listen in.  Even Thorin, still at times taciturn and brusque, was keeping half an ear out; Bilba could see him casting sidelong glances their way over the campfire.  She grinned behind her mug.

 

“But what about now, milady?” Nori asked some time later.  “What will you eat when you _are_ hungry, on the road?”

 

“It won’t be any of us, will it?” Dwalin joked, and there was a chorus of slightly nervous laughter.

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” Bilba said, getting up to refill her mug.  “Lea is very resourceful.”

 

“Mmm,” Lea agreed, turning her head when there was a yowling cry from somewhere in the dark. 

 

_Goblins,_ Bilba thought with a shiver, remembering an earlier conversation with Fili and Kili, the young horrors, and went back to sit with Lea.

 

“Something will come up,” Lea continued.

 

‘Something’ did.

 

\---

 

Really, it had been a terrible mistake to name the ponies.  It made things all the more horrible that Daisy and Bungo, and Myrtle and Minty were about to be eaten by trolls.  Listening to the trio complain about the lack of variety in their diet was by turns awful and downright horrifying.  The ruined farmhouse suddenly made so much more sense.

 

‘Of all the times for Lea to be _sleeping_ ,’ Bilba thought, frantic, as she crouched just beyond the firelight behind the makeshift pen where the ponies milled, stomping with fear.  And where had those two young Dwarves got to?  She’d never imitated a bird in her _life_ , never mind a variety of owls – how was she to signal them?

 

One of the trolls reached over to clout one of his compatriots and _ah!_   There was a dirty great blade, curved like a sickle, tucked next to the pouch (which jiggled suspiciously) on his belt.  If she could get hold of that she could cut the binding on the gate and loose the ponies, at least.  Her little pocketknife was too small for the ropes and after sawing desperately away for a few minutes, too blunt.

 

Bilba wiggled past the pen, keeping to the shadows on her silent feet, and reached… nearly… almost… _just about_ …

 

“OI!”

 

_Damn._

 

One of the trolls pointed a ladle at her.  “WHAT’S THAT THEN?”

 

“Eh?  _Bloody hell_ ,” said the one with the blade, “the little weasel’s after me coin!”

 

Bilba was swung up into the air with a yelp and inspected like a skinned hare.

 

“What the hell is it?” asked one troll.  He was cross-eyed and leaking appallingly.  As Bilba watched, upside-down and already fighting nausea, he drew a mouldering blanket from his belt and ineffectually blew his flat nose on it.

 

“Blowed if I know,” said the one of the ladle.  “What are you, presumin’ you can speak.”

 

“I – I’m,” Bilba gasped, “I’m very sorry to intrude.  But – but – I saw your fire, you see, and – and I’m h-h-hungry.”

 

“Hungry!”  This was presumably hilarious and sent the whole lot of them off.  “Chubby li’l thing like you, hungry?”  The one holding her prodded her belly.  “I think not!”

 

Bilba, despite her fear, _barely_ managed to swallow her outrage.  Hobbits were supposed to be well-rounded!  It was a sign of good health!  The _swine_!

 

“If you’re hungry, why’d you try to take my coin, eh?  Eh?”  He gave her a shake that rattled her teeth.

 

“I wasn’t going to take your coin!” Bilba said through clenched teeth, fighting her stomach again.  By the stars, they really did smell.  “I thought it might have food in it.”

 

The troll with the ladle stirred their big pot and tutted.  “Still stealing, innit?  Y’wicked wee whatever-you-are.”

 

“I’m very sorry,” Bilba said, to a further chorus of laughter, “honestly, if – if you let me go I’ll just be on my way and won’t bother you ag-”

 

“Let you go?  Mmmm, will we be doing that?” said her captor, feigning thought and rubbing his lumpy chin.

 

“I don’t reckon!” said the leaky troll, snot bubbling from his left nostril.  “Not enough mutton in that pot.  Maybe it’ll change the flavour!”

 

“Oh no, no, no!” Bilba cried with sudden inspiration.  “No you don’t want to do that!”

 

They all stopped and blinked at her.  “Why not?”

 

“That’s – that’s no way to cook a hobbit!”

 

“A what?”

 

“Oh, did – did I not say before?  That’s me – I’m a hobbit.”

 

“Never heard of ‘em,” said the troll holding her.  She yelped again as she was abruptly righted in his grip and all the blood rushed away from her head.  Her head spun and she gulped foul air.

 

“You won’t have,” she assured them, “We’re a – a rare delicacy.”

 

“Go on,” said the cook, apparently intrigued.

 

“Well,” Bilba said, “I-ideally, you want to bake us with fruit.  Bottled in brandy is best.”  Heavens she was never going to think of her Granny’s crumble in the same way ever again.  “With a pastry crust.”

 

The snot-blower threw his arms up, spraying mucus.  Bilba ducked and watched in horror as several green blobs the size of her fist missed her by inches.  Two landed in the stew pot.

 

“Well that’s a bloody wash!  We don’t have any of those!  Nor an oven!”

 

“Could always heat some stones, bake her in the earth,” the cook said peaceably.  “And there’s some blackberry growing a little way down the hill, that’d do for fruit.  Don’t think we need pastry – neither of you two heathens appreciate it,” he added with an injured sniff.

 

‘ _Wonderful_ ,’ Bilba thought with mounting panic, ‘I wind up in the clutches of the one _resourceful_ troll-cook in the whole of Middle-Earth.’

 

“Get your knife out, Bill,” said the cook.  “Get about skinning it so the meat drains.”

 

“Excuse me,” came a polite interjection from beyond the firelight, high up.  Two big eyes gleamed in the shadows from the stone ledge behind them.  “Did you say something about pastry?”

 

“’Ere!  Who’s this now?” demanded the snot troll.  “More Hobbits?”

 

“No!” roared another voice, “Dwarves!”

 

And then the whole Company was pounding out of the woods with their swords and axes out, yelling war cries.  Bilba, doing her bit, wriggled enough in Bill’s grip to pull out her little knife and drive it into his finger.  He dropped her with a yell and aimed a kick at her.

 

The blow never landed.  Lea had evidently climbed the rockface behind the troll’s camp and now dropped on Bill from a great height.  There were a lot of really violent squishing and crackling noises that Bilba tried not to focus on.  Instead she jumped and grabbed the trailing edge of one of one of Lea’s wings and was whisked through the air and onto Lea’s back when she closed her wings.  Bilba clung on for dear life as Lea gripped Bill’s corpse with her jaws and hurled him over her shoulder, sending the body crashing into the woods a good twenty feet from the clearing.

 

“Try and eat my Hobbit will you?” Lea hissed, the sound rattling in her throat.  “Not if I eat you first!”

 

The cook, besieged by angry Dwarves, took one look at Lea and turned tail with a wail.  Bilba clung to Lea’s spines as she gave chase, leaping into the air with one fierce downstroke of her wings, trailing the troll for half a mile by air, then cupping her wings close and dropping like a stone.  Bilba felt her stomach left behind somewhere up in the sky behind her, but there was a wonderful screaming joy to the dive, the speed of it, the vengeance.

 

Lea bowled the troll like a hawk does a hare, then spun about on a wing tip and snatched him up the way she had those enormous fish, gripping his thrashing body in her foreclaws.

 

With a snarl out of nightmare, the dragon rent him apart, flinging his limbs down onto the remains of the farmhouse and opening his chest with one mighty slash of a hind claw. 

 

She ate his heart out of his pulsing, weeping chest, then bellowed her rage to the sky, Bilba gasping out a helpless hysterical laugh on her back.

 

\---

 

Dawn found Bilba and Lea a little distance from the Dwarves’ camp.  Bilba was safely ensconced between Lea’s forelegs so she could hear the slow drumbeat of her dragon’s heart.  Lea curled around her protectively, her wings arched over them in a leathery bower, the way she did when it rained and she became their tent.

 

As they watched, the rising sun touched the troll’s limbs and the pillared corridor formed by his discarded ribcage and turned them all to stone.

 

“That…that won’t happen to the bits you ate, will it?” Bilba whispered.

 

“No, my petal,” Lea reassured her.  “Not unless sunlight touched them, and that I’m not likely to swallow.”

 

Bilba smiled weakly and pressed her face to Lea’s, just beside her left eye.

 

From close by came the crash and rustle of a collection of Dwarves moving through undergrowth.

 

“So loud,” Bilba found herself tutting.

 

“Mistress Baggins!” called Dori, “are you well?”

 

“I’m alright,” Bilba called back, though she still wasn’t sure her legs would hold her.  “Oh, hello Gandalf,” she added to the tall grey figure following the Company out of the trees.  “When did you get back?”

 

“Just now, my dear Hobbit,” he replied, coming forward to take a knee and cup one of her hands in his, his big knuckley thumb moving in comforting circles on her wrist.  “Just in time it would appear.” 

 

He eyed the stone ribcage and rent troll limbs.  Bilba could see the a few of the Dwarves doing the same.

 

“So,” Ori was saying hesitantly, “Dragons eat trolls?”

 

“If sufficiently motivated, it appears,” Nori muttered, kicking a small chunk of petrified muscle next to one enormous stone leg.

 

Thorin chose this time to storm up.  “What were you thinking?” he growled at Bilba.

 

“I – I was trying to get his knife,” she said, startling back against Lea, who rumbled warningly.  Several of the Dwarves took a smart step back, but Thorin appeared not to have heard.  “To cut the ponies free.”

 

“You – you were trying to steal from them?!” Thorin snarled.  “Fili and Kili said they told you to signal them, not steal from trolls!”

 

“I don’t know how to hoot like an owl!” Bilba said, getting cross.  Her legs, having quite forgotten to be wobbly, shot her upright so she could glare at Thorin properly.  “I don’t even know how to tell one owl call from another!  How was I supposed to signal anything!”

 

“You should have come back immediately!”

 

“You hired me to be a burglar!  I was burglaring!”

 

“I hired you to burgle a _dragon_ , not three common stinking trolls like a common stinking thief!”

 

“ _Oh_!” Bilba said, _vibrating_ with rage at this point, “oh that is _it_!”

 

“Oh dear,” murmured Lea, and Bilba found herself being lifted gently off her feet before her little fists could royally connect with Thorin’s royal person.  She nearly took off Gandalf’s hat on the way past.

 

“You!” Bilba yelled as she was carried away, “you overblown, puffed up, _rude_ , despicable – Dwarf!”

 

Occupied with working up to a magnificent rant, she did not hear Balin come up to Thorin, who stood huffing and blowing like a bull, and say, “best let it go, laddie.”

 

“What?”

 

“We all make rash decisions in a pinch; it’s just been her first time in a rather big one.”  Balin gave him a look.  “And you’ve just told her it was her own fault.  Shouted, rather.”

 

Thorin breathed roughly through his nose.  “She could have been _killed_ , Balin.  _We_ could have been killed.”

 

“I believe, Mistress Baggins is well aware of the possible outcomes, Mr Oakenshield,” Gandalf said, climbing to his feet.  “That is likely why she is so angry.”

 

They looked down the hill to where Lea was settled with her back facing them.  Bilba was corralled between her mantled wings and in full flow.  The abuse being heaped on Thorin and his ancestors was really quite inventive.

 

“Now I’m quite sure your grandfather never did _that_ ,” Balin said with raised eyebrows after a particularly virulent bellow.

 

“Well, one never knew, with Thror,” Gandalf said.

 

Thorin gaped at him and was about to refute this aspersion when there was a yell from further up the hill.  Kili came belting out of the woods yelling, “Uncle, come and look!  Nori found a troll hoard!”

 

\---

 

The hoard was not particularly impressive, but then again it was more than they had.  They buried their shares of the gold and trinkets, and Thorin and Gandalf claimed the two best swords.

 

“Elven made.  Forged in Gondolin, by the High Elves of the First Age,” Gandalf murmured, examining the blades, “and better swords than those trolls should have access to.  How did those creatures find these, one wonders…”

 

Thorin turned his blade back and forth, grudgingly admitting, if only to himself, that it was a very fine thing.  The balance was exquisite, and he knew it would sing for him, even if it had been forged for the willowy figure of an Elf rather than the stocky stature of a Dwarf.

 

As he twisted the blade again it glimmered, and that light in turn glanced off something else: there was a dagger, which looked to be of the same make and steel as the two Elf swords, half-buried down the lower bank of the cave.  Thorin sheathed his sword, slid down the bank and pulled it free.  The blade was in the shape of an elongated leaf and the detailing of the hilt was almost pretty.

 

“No more than a pocket knife for a troll,” Gandalf said.

 

“But enough to be a sword for a Hobbit,” Thorin murmured, and went to find Bilba.

 

\---

 

“What’s this?” Bilba said suspiciously, as Thorin handed her the dagger.

 

She was standing just inside the treeline, and looked alarmingly small.  Thorin, to his chagrin, began to feel bad for her.  Balin was right that she’d had a bad fright, and objectively, had coped rather well.

 

“It’s an apology,” said Thorin.  “For yelling.”

 

Bilba’s eyes narrowed.

 

“And for – for calling you a common thief.”

 

“Common _stinking_ thief.”

 

“Er, yes.  That.”

 

Bilba huffed.  “I’m not a Dwarf, you know; I won’t be fobbed off with –”  She squinted at the dagger.  “- very nice weaponry.”

 

Thorin, thwarted, growled, “what would you have me do then?”

 

Bilba _rolled her eyes at him_.  “Just say you’re sorry!”

 

“I am!” Thorin said, gesturing a little wildly at the dagger.

 

“No, just…say the words, Thorin.”

 

Thorin opened mouth – and above them was a great rustle as the canopy was disturbed, leaves falling around them like green streamers.  Lady Green’s thorny head descended and she blinked down at them.

 

“What,” Thorin said blankly.

 

“I’m here to witness this for posterity,” Lady Green said.  Thorin didn’t know if dragons even had the facial flexion for smirking, but it certainly appeared this one was smirking right now.  “Not often you get an apology out of a Dwarf.”

 

“Oh for-!”

 

Bilba looked up at him over the glinting line of the dagger – her little sword, better than that daft little knife she stabbed the troll with by far – and Thorin thought, ‘sod it’.

 

He put his shoulders back, looked right back at her and said:

 

“My apologies, Mistress Baggins.”

 

“Good heavens,” said Lady Green.

 

Both Bilba and Thorin rolled their eyes this time, but Thorin nevertheless continued: “We were both under stress, and I expressed myself poorly.”

 

“So did I,” Bilba admitted.  “Trolls are rather more than I’m used to.  Thank you for the sword though, it’s lovely.  But why is it glowing?”

 

Thorin, staring at the now luminescent blue Elven steel, let out the worse curse word he knew, prompting gasps from both ladies.

 

In the distance there was a throaty howl, and the rest of the Company thundered down the hill.

 

“ORCS!  WARG SCOUTS!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS! ITS A CHAPTER FIC! THERE ARE CHAPTERS! YAY!
> 
> In other news the writing continues to happen - holy shit - but don't expect any great canonical accuracy, I'm playing fast and loose for fun here.
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who's been commenting and bookmarking and kudosing! You're making my day!


	3. No Time To Explain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We should go to Rivendell!”
> 
> “WE’RE NOT GOING TO RIVENDELL!”
> 
> \---
> 
> They went to Rivendell.
> 
> \---

 

_ 3 – No Time to Explain! _

 

While Thorin and Bilba had been talking (and Lea had been supervising) apparently another Wizard had arrived in a wizardly lather –

 

On a wooden sled drawn by great big rabbits.

 

Bilba rather thought she had been having a strange day, but it must have been nothing compared to the Wizard – Radagast the Brown – who had apparently been pursued all the way here by big evil wolves and their orc riders in order to pass on news of villainy in the East to Gandalf and was now face to face with a Dragon.

 

“What!” yelped Radagast.

 

“Hello,” Lea said politely.

 

“Coo!” went all the rabbits, stretching up on their powerful hind legs to try and touch noses with Lea.

 

“ _What_ ,” said Radagast again, baffled by his steeds.  Bilba was baffled by the quantity of bird poo caking down the side of his face.  There was rather a lot of twittering going on under his funny felted hat, though.

 

“We don’t have time for introductions,” Gandalf said, “we must go immediately!”

 

“Go where?” Gloin said.  “They’ve cut us off.  We won’t get past them back to the road.”

 

“We’re not going _past_ them,” Lea announced, and then began to crouch down.  Bilba climbed aboard and took her usual spot at the base of Lea’s neck, looking expectantly back at the Company.  “We’re going over them.”

 

“Great stars,” Oin said faintly.

 

“Oh _no_ ,” moaned Bombur.  


“Oh yes!” cheered Bofur.

 

“You said only in a pinch!” Dori cried, eyes wide.

 

“This is a pinch, Mr Dwarf,” Lea said sternly, “now up you all come, chop chop!”

 

The howls were getting closer, and so up climbed the Dwarves with their packs, as much as they – or rather Lea – could carry.

 

Last was Bombur, who was in agonies.

 

“I can’t!”

 

“Bombur, get up here!” Bofur shouted.  Bifur shouted the same in Khuzdul.

 

“Too late,” said Lea, as the first warg came over the rise, and she snatched up Bombur in her foreclaws.  His yells of horror and surprise were nearly blown away by the beat of her wings and she launched herself straight up with one kick of her hind legs.

 

“I’ll draw them off,” Radagast called to Gandalf.  “Goodbye, er, Miss Dragon.”

 

“Fare thee well!” Gandalf called back to him, “and thank you!”

 

They watched the Wizard speed away with his team of rabbits, several of the wargs and orcs taking off after him.  But others stayed, running in circles below them as Lea spiralled higher.

 

“They have bows,” she called back to the Company.  “I want to get clear of them as quick as I can; which way am I going?”

 

“East, to the Last Homely House,” said Gandalf.

 

“No!” Thorin roared back.  There was a distant _twang_ and they all ducked as a black-fletched arrow whizzed past.  “We are not going to Rivendell!”

 

“Why not?” Gandalf wanted to know.

 

“It’s full of Elves!”

 

“That is not a reason, Thorin!”

 

“Yes it is!  What if they try to take the map and stymie our Quest?”

 

“Lord Elrond is a friend, he would not –”

 

More _twangs_ and a volley of arrows was narrowly dodged.  Bombur wailed below them.  Lea spiralled higher still, the hills and grasslands below them swaying alarmingly.

 

“Pick a direction, gentlemen!” she bellowed over her shoulder at them.  


“We should go to Rivendell!”

 

“WE’RE NOT GOING TO RIVENDELL!”

 

\---

 

They went to Rivendell.

 

\---

 

Luckily for everyone involved – and their sanity – Gandalf had managed to convince a passing magpie to alight on Lea’s back.  He spoke to her at length in the language of birds, and the baffled corvid agreed to take a message to Elrond and his kin, so that their arrival at the Last Homely House would not instigate yet another volley of arrows.  That done, there was nothing more to do than settle in for the flight.

 

It was, as the crow flies, less than fifty miles from their previous camp to Rivendell and would only be a short journey by Dragon.

 

It felt longer.

 

“Kili, _move_ , you’re crushing my foot!”

 

“I _can’t_ , I’ll fall, and _die_!  In case you haven’t noticed we’re thousands of feet in the air!”

 

“I had, actually, because if you don’t get off my foot its going to go _numb_ and then I won’t be able to use it to hang on and _I’ll_ fall and die!”

 

Bilba could just about hear Thorin grinding his teeth to powder over the rushing of the wind.

 

“Who cares if you fall?” barked Kili, shoving his brother.

 

“Uncle would, I’m his heir!”

 

“Well if you fall then I’ll be his heir!”

 

“Who’d want you for an heir!”

 

Bilba was beginning to wonder if Thorin would actually crack a molar when he whipped around and growled, “Put a sock in it, the pair of you, or I will disown you both and make Ori my heir.”

 

Ori, bless him, looked up in horror and said faintly, “Oh no!  Please!  Meaning no disrespect!”

 

Gandalf chuckled and Dori put his arm around his brother, “No one’s going to put a crown on your head, you poor dumpling.”

 

Once the princelings were quiet, Bilba thought the rest of the trip would be the same.

 

T’was not to be.

 

\---

 

By the time they were circling the valley of Imladris Bofur – despite his bravado – had been ill into his own hat, which had set off Bifur who had also been sick into the unfortunate hat, Oin had lost his hearing trumpet overboard and then couldn’t hear anyone telling him they weren’t going back for it, Dori had tried to start some kind of sing-along and been shouted down by his grumpy kin and compatriots, Fili and Kili continued to sulk and snip at each other below the hearing of the rest of the Company (but not Lea’s sharp ears) and Thorin had started muttering darkly about the ill-will and fickleness of Elves as they neared the Last Homely House.

 

Bombur, by contrast, had lost his fear of flying entirely and informed Lea that he was quite enjoying zooming about in the sky seeing the land below laid out like a map. 

 

“It’s quite pretty actually,” he told her cheerfully.

 

Lea, for her part, was done.

 

Instead of landing in the main courtyard as their hosts expected, Lea opted for a water landing at the base of the falls.

 

Bombur was first off, bowled across the surface of the river like a skipped stone on Lea’s first pass over the water.

 

To the surprise of the Elves – who, having seen the Dragon swoop low over the river Bruinen had hastily migrated their welcome party to the edge of the water – Bombur came to a splashy stop in the shallows, laughing.

 

“What fun!” he chortled, as the confused Elves helped him up and wrapped him in a blanket.

 

On the next pass Lea landed on the surface of the river, wings mantled like an angry swan and barked, “OFF!  All of you off and take you bickering and baggage and leave me be!”

 

She gave a brisk shake that rocked her passengers and sent them yelping and snatching up packs and bags, all of them wriggling to get down off her back and into the shallow water.  Having dislodged the Dwarves and Wizard, she swam back out to the centre of the river and dove. 

 

One of the Elves cried out, “There was still someone on the Dragon’s back!  They’ll drown!”

 

“That is highly unlikely, my lady,” Gandalf said, frowning ferociously at his sodden robe, as though he could will it dry by the force of his glower alone.  “Bilba has swum with Lady Green nearly all her life.  She won’t let harm come to the Hobbit.”

 

And indeed, moments later Lea surfaced with an outrageously large trout in her jaws, still wiggling angrily.  She tossed it up and caught it so that she could swallow it head first and the entire fish disappeared down her gullet.  Bilba was now standing between two of her back spines and grinning as she pushed her wet curls off her face, her nose and round cheeks pink with cold and exhilaration.  She waved at the assembly of Elves and Dwarves on the riverbank.

 

“Hobbits,” Gandalf murmured, waving back.  “I do not think they will ever stop surprising me.”

 

There was a moment of appreciative quiet as they watched Lea drift on the current, her stone coat flickering in the light of the sinking sun, gilding she and the river and the little figure on her back.

 

This brief pool of serenity was broken by a late arriving Elf youth, who came charging down the path through the trees and skidded to a stop at the water’s edge, nearly over balancing as he collided with his mother and shouted:

 

“ _Emel_ , is that a _Dragon_!?”

 

\---

 

The Dwarves were escorted up a neatly kept garden path, which joined that to the first courtyard.  There was a lot of suspicious muttering from the elders amongst the party and awed gawping from the younger.  Rivendell sat in its hidden valley, an elegantly shaped gem in its river-wrought setting, and though Elven workmanship was an entirely different school from Dwarven, there was something that appealed.  Something soothing to the pale, curving stone, the statues with their open arms and down-turned eyes, flowers in every corner, the sound of the ever-flowing Loudwater seeking passage through specially cut channels so that it moved around and beneath the Last Homely House.

 

Thorin did not trust it.  Beauty had too often hidden horror and unkindness.

 

Gandalf seemed to think they would find help here, even if it was to be obtained without revealing their true motives, and that again Thorin did not trust.  To be a Dwarf was to say what you meant and get on with things.  It was all very well to say _charm_ and _tact_ but what it all boiled down to was _lying_.  Thorin wanted his secrets kept, but the Dwarven mode of keeping secrets was largely just not talking at all.

 

Thorin was feeling rather vindicated in his opinion of Elves as a whole when a horn sounded in the distance and then the entire party was encircled by Elvish riders in hunting armour, one of which was there host.

 

Then, into the already volatile mix, came the Lady Green.

 

She had climbed up cliffs of the ford and up onto the smaller courtyard, silhouetted by the lowering sun as she reared up over the edge, her eyes glowing in the gathering gloom this deep in the valley. 

 

Alarmed cries sounded from the startled horses and their riders, and they drew away from the Dwarves to the other side of the courtyard.

 

“Oh, do calm down,” the Dragon muttered as she clambered up and settled at the edge.  She smelt overwhelmingly of fish blood and wet stone.  Thorin could see a few missed scales glittering on the hard curve of her lips.  “Did we not send word ahead of our arrival?  Why such a fracas?  Unless one of you has managed to upset things already?”  She turned her lambent eyes on the Dwarves.

 

“We’ve done no such thing!” Gloin insisted.

 

“Oh yes,” Lady Green muttered doubtfully.

 

“I’ll believe it when I see it!” piped Bilba from the shelter of under her companion’s wing.  Her round face appeared, surrounded by unevenly drying curls and the odd tendril of waterweed.  Her blouse, breeches and waistcoat were still damp.  Were it not for the messy braid and round hips, she could have been a wild young Hobbit lad, fished out of a river.

 

“There’s really nothing to fear,” Gandalf was saying to the Elves and their host, “this is the Lady Lea Green and her friend Mistress Bilba Baggins, a Hobbit of the Shire.  They are our travelling companions, as I explained in my message.”  He looked back at Lindir, who was standing on the stairs and rather at a loss.  “You did receive my message, I take it?”

 

“We did, Mithrandir,” said Lindir, “but Lord Elrond and his hunting party missed the missive my mere moments.”

 

Elrond appeared to be recovering himself and dismounted, slowly approaching their party.  “Strange company you have brought us, my friend,” he murmured.  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Green, and you Mistress Baggins.  But who are you Dwarf friends?  I recognise at least one of you.”  He nodded to Thorin.  “Well met, Thorin, son of Thrain.”

 

Thorin opened his mouth to rebuff this familiarity, when he caught sight of Lady Green and Mistress Baggins making murderous faces at him.  Bilba was fond of Elves, he recalled, and had fed several of the ones that passed through the Shire in aid of the Rangers of the North.

 

If he embarrassed her in front of this noble Elf and his household, there was every chance Thorin could wake up on fire.

 

“Well met, Lord Elrond,” he growled.  “Though I must ask, how is it you have recognised me?”

 

“I was acquainted with your father and grandfather, when they ruled beneath the Mountain,” Lord Elrond explained, shucking his riding gloves.  Thorin bit back another retort in the face of Bilba’s continuing murder-eyes.  “Would you and your Company care for dinner, after a chance to…freshen up?”

 

Thorin was suddenly aware of the state of himself and the other Dwarves, covered in travel-dirt not entirely removed by their dunking in the river – in fact some of the mud from the riverbank had stuck and exasperated the problem.

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Bilba said with evident relief and Thorin felt his ears go red as she marched past him without a by-your-leave.  You could do that, with a Dragon at you back.  “Yes _please_ , _hir nin_!”

 

And that, as they say, was that.

 

The Company were escorted to their respective quarters and given the option of bathing in their rooms making use of communal bath halls.

 

“With apologies, Lady Green,” Lindir said, the picture of regret, “there is not room for a lady of your… exceptional stature in the bath halls.”

 

Lady Green appeared endlessly amused.  “That’s quite alright, Master Lindir, as I prefer my baths cold.”

 

“I do not, though,” Mistress Baggins piped up, and took herself off to the bath halls, abandoning the Dwarves to their fates until dinnertime.

 

\---

 

Rivendell was Bilba’s sort of place.

 

There were gardens, both ornamental and kitchen, a small orchard filled with apple and pear, peach and plum, even a few almond trees!  While the ever present sound of the river Bruinen rushing beneath would not comfort most Hobbits, Bilba loved it and the reminder of the subterranean river tunnel to the Bywater. 

 

And the books!  Bilba hadn’t realised you could miss books, and here there was more than one library, filled to the brim.  The chairs in them were built along Elvish lines, meant for Big Folk, but that simply meant luxuriously huge to a Hobbit (once a footstool could be located to climb into the dratted things). 

 

It seemed to Bilba and there was always someone singing something somewhere, either to an audience or to themselves, lovely Elvish voices making themselves part of the summer-born breeze, and music every night in the Hall of Fire, soothing her to dreaming of the rolling hills and fields of home, of the moon hanging low and full over Bag End, of she and her Dragon watching the stars…

 

Best of all, though, there was _food_.  Perhaps a little greener than she was used to, but oh such food…  Stew and hard biscuit and salt pork was all very well for a while, and she liked wild rabbit fine enough (thankfully this had not come up in Radagast’s presence…) but here there was proper bread, baked fresh every morning, and perfect poached eggs at breakfast, and cream for over porridge, honey cakes studded with red and black currents, jam and scones and tea for elevenses, _mushrooms_ … Oh mushrooms every morning, in cream and butter, mushrooms with gravy at night – it was too lovely to believe.

 

Before all this was discovered of course, there was a bath to have, and so Bilba, finding herself lonely in her rooms, after so much time with Lea and the Company, made her way down to the bath halls.

 

There was a big communal pool sunk into its floor, with marble tiles and stairs one could sit upon and comb out one’s unruly hair, and smaller separate tubs, some behind folding screens for those who wanted a little privacy.  Bilba had no such compunctions, and Hobbitish curiosity drew her to the other women – _elleth_ – in the bath hall. 

 

The Elves – especially, Bilba gathered, the younger ones – were equally as curious about their small visitor, and so the afternoon was spent sharing the tales particular to womanhood while the _elleth_ exclaimed over Bilba’s mop of russet curls (and helped her comb it out) and the matching ones on her feet.  Bilba explained that nearly everyone had curly hair in the Shire, and discovered it was not at all common amongst the Eldar, whose hair, to a one, fell in heavy silk curtains down their slender backs.

 

It was lovely, to make friends.

 

Conversation inevitably moved onto Lea and Bilba’s new companions listened, rapt, as she told the tale of how she came to discover Lea in the unknown cavern beneath her home.

 

“But how did she come to be in the cavern?” Orel asked.

 

“Lea tells it better than I do,” Bilba responded, “you’d better ask her yourself.”

 

\---

 

Dinner was…

 

Well.

 

It was what happens when you put a collection of rapscallion Dwarves at a formal dinner with Elves:  Ori refused to eat his salad; Oin enjoyed the music right up until he made use of the replacement hearing horn that had been found for him, and then he made dour, appalled faces the amusement of his kinsmen; and Kili – oh heavens, _Kili_ – Kili made eyes at the Elvish harpist until Dwalin and Bilba caught him at it.

 

“Kili, did you just wink at that _elleth_?” Bilba hissed, outraged.  He’d get himself a good smack if he’d been one of her younger cousins.  Beside her Dwalin rumbled his disapproval.

 

“What’s an _elleth_?” asked Kili, all bland innocence.  Fili put his hands over his face.

 

“It’s a lady Elf,” said Balin, “which you are well aware of.  I _know_ you’re mother didn’t let you education suffer that badly, even if your Uncle will have naught to do with Elf-tongues.”

 

“Oh, well,” said Kili, looking shifty.  “Uh…”

 

“You are the _worst_ ,” Fili hissed under his breath.

 

“Well…” floundered his little brother, “ _well_ … there’s no attraction in…in _elleth_ to me, you know, too thin.  They’re all…high cheekbones and creamy skin.”  He shrugged elaborately, making the kind of face that would have made Bilba search his pockets and call on his mother if he was a Hobbit lad.  “It’s Dwarf lasses for me,” he professed, “I much prefer wide hips and facial hair and a dab hand with an anvil.  That one’s not bad though,” he finished, eyeing up the flutist this time.

 

“Oh, for the love of…” Fili muttered.

 

“That’s not at Elf _maid_ ,” said Dwalin, to the uproarious laughter of the table.

 

Bilba frowned and leant over to Balin, murmuring, “Would it matter, if Kili fancied an male Elf?”

 

“Male, no,” Balin said, “we have dwarrows who go together, and the odd dam who fancies another of her gender.”

 

“So do we,” Bilba said, thinking of Errol and Kipper, who had a flat over their little shop in central Hobbiton.  “But an Elf would be a problem?”

 

“Aye well, with the way things stand between Thorin and the Elves of Mirkwood…”

 

“Ah,” said Bilba.  “That’s a bit sad though.  Imagine if he did set his heart on one of the Eldar, and they on him!”

 

Balin sighed heavily.  “A drama I should not like to think on, Mistress Baggins.”  At Bilba’s raised eyebrows he added, “I rather think this Company has enough drama to be carrying on with, don’t you?”

 

Bilba grinned.

 

She grinned, right up until Bofur leapt up onto the table and started singing.

 

“You were saying about drama, Mr Balin,” Bilba said, but Balin just laughed and sang along with his kin.

 

\---

 

After dinner – which, Bilba noticed, Thorin had stormed away from – Bilba found herself cornered by none other than Erestor, Lord Elrond’s advisor.

 

“We ask that you locate Prince Thorin and pass on a message from Lord Elrond and Mirthrandir,” he told her.

 

Bilba, who had been admiring a mural of Isildur facing off against the Dark Lord Sauron in the archives, blinked at him.

 

“I see,” said Bilba.  “and why must I pass on this message to Thorin?”

 

Erestor’s face then did a thing that she had never seen an Elf’s face do before.  Bilba watched, intrigued, as poor Erestor moved though what was called in the Shire as The Five Stages of Grief in the space of a moment, before he said, “He will not speak to any of us.”

 

“Any of who?” inquired Bilba.

 

“Any… any Elf, as far as we can tell.” 

 

“Oh dear,” said Bilba.  “He must be quite cross.  I can see how this would be a bit of a predicament for you.  What would you like me to tell him?”

 

\---

 

Bilba banged on the door to Thorin’s assigned chambers and receiving no reply called out, “I’m coming in,” and then picked the lock, which was not particularly complicated.  Bilba reflected that it needn’t be really, as the Last Homely House was a place of safety, and Elves appeared to lack the raging paranoia common to Dwarves and certain Hobbits. 

 

Belladonna Took had believed in a well rounded education and had quietly gone about passing on the skills she had picked up from her own youthful adventures to her tweenage daughter.  Bilba had practiced her lockpicking on her mother’s Dwarven safe, which was in the habit of spewing incriminating ink from the second keyhole when the anti-tampering triggers were tripped.  Poor Bungo could not work out why his daughter so frequently ‘fell asleep over her letters’ and came to dinner with a blue-spattered face.

 

Bilba chuckled to under her breath as she let herself into Thorin’s chambers.  She would have to tell him that story, she thought, he might even find it funny.

 

The Dwarf in question was on his balcony, glaring the small courtyard it over looked, ringed by lush gardens and lit by the last of the sunlight still filtering into the valley.  The first stars were appearing on the opposite horizon.

 

“Hello,” said Bilba, who secretly enjoyed his look of surprise.  “I’ve been asked to pass on a message from Gandalf and Lord Elrond.”

 

Thorin’s glower came back and he growled, “I’ve nothing to say to them tonight.”

 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Bilba said, rather pragmatically.  “I’m passing on a message from them to you, so you just have to listen.”

 

This was only answered with further growling.  Bilba ignored him roundly and continued.

 

“They would like you to meet them on the moon terrace, just after moonrise, so that they might discuss an artefact in your possession.”

 

“I care not,” said Thorin, crossing his arms and setting his jaw.  “I also do not care for people barging into my chambers.”

 

“I did call out, you know,” said Bilba mildly.

 

“Regardless, I thought I had locked that door,” Thorin groused.  “How did you get in?”

 

“I picked the lock.”

 

Thorin stared at her as though she had grown a second head that spoke Queya and spat feathers.

 

“It wasn’t a particularly difficult one,” said Bilba.

 

“Where on earth did a gentlehobbit learn to pick locks?” he wanted to know.

 

“Oh well,” Bilba said, brightening and taking the opportunity, “My mother was something of a gad-about when she was young, and she had this Dwarven safe…”

 

In fact, the tale did make Thorin smile.  Bilba found herself secretly – _terribly_ – fascinated by the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth that he had been hiding this whole time.  Lea would have a bloody field day if she ever found this out.

 

“If you learnt at the mercy of a Dwarven safe, it is no wonder that Elven lock was no challenge for you,” Thorin said with typical arrogance.  He wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it irked Bilba a little.

 

“This isn’t a fortress, Mr Dwarf,” she said.  “There isn’t the need for such locks here.  And besides, it’s like my old dad used to say – no need for all to be good at everything; the world would be terribly boring if we were.”

 

Thorin huffed.  “A Hobbit _would_ say such a thing.”

 

Bilba rolled her eyes, making not motion to hide it.  “Speaking of,” she said pointedly, “why did Gandalf want you to discuss an artefact with Lord Elrond?”

 

Thorin’s glower made a return.  “He believes the Elf has some skill at deciphering part of it, that I and the Company lack.”

 

“And does he?”

 

“It matters not,” Thorin said, clearly dismissing the matter.  Bilba fought the urge to grab his ears and shake him.  It was just like him, she thought, to hear a slight against his people’s skills in an offer of assistance.

 

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” she said, “unless it has some impact on the Quest…”

 

_Ah-ha._   Thorin’s shoulders hunched very slightly.  If he had been a lad they would have been touching his shoulders and his face would be been red past his beard.

 

“Oh it does impact on the Quest,” Bilba said, and watched the Prince grind his teeth at being caught out.  “Must be very important then.  I suppose you have in on your person at all times, to keep it safe?  Wouldn’t do to lose something so precious.”

 

“Of course,” said Thorin, frowning at her.  His hand touched his breast, where Bilba knew there was a pocket under his scale armour.

 

“In that case – Lea, would you be so kind?”

 

“Gladly,” said Lea, who had been languishing on the roof above them since Bilba entered the room.

 

“What-!” Thorin yelped as Lea dropped into the courtyard and picked up both he and Bilba before launching herself skyward.  “Bilba Baggins, what is the meaning of this!?”

 

“I didn’t come all the way from my lovely Hobbit hole, and get nearly eaten by trolls, and then wargs, and eat dried meat and go without milk in my tea, for weeks, to have it all go to waste and ruin because you are a stubborn old Dwarf with more hair than sense!”

 

“You!” Thorin howled, and then sputtered as they passed through the curtain of the waterfall that bordered the moon terrace where Gandalf and Lord Elrond were waiting.  Lea landed and deposited both irate Dwarf and surly Hobbit down beside the rather surprised Wizard and Elf Lord.

 

“Ah,” said Lord Elrond.  “Well.  That was…creative of you, Mistress Bilba, Lady Green.”

 

“Thank you, _hir nin,_ ” Bilba said with bad grace, and climbed onto Lea’s back to watch the proceedings unfold.  She would have left, but rather thought that if they did Thorin would march off in a huff.  As it was, he was currently having a shouting match with Gandalf.

 

“Our business is not the concern of Elves!”

 

“Thorin, for goodness sake!  Show him the map!”

 

Bilba rolled her eyes so hard she saw stars.  Oh of course; of course the ‘artefact’ was the map that they were all relying upon to get them to and into the blasted Mountain.  Honestly…

 

“It is the legacy of my people,” Thorin was growling.

 

And speaking of his people, there was the rapid thunder of boots and the huff of a Dwarf past his prime, and Balin arrived at the end of the passage from upper Rivendell.

 

“Laddie,” he gasped at Thorin, “Did ye show –?”

 

“No, Balin, I did not, and I will not.  It is mine to protect, as are its secrets.”

 

“Save me from the stubbornness of Dwarves,” muttered Gandalf, “your pride will be your downfall.”

 

“He’s not wrong,” Lea murmured, and when both Dwarves cut her a look, she merely folded one foreleg over the other and let white steam drift from her nostrils, to hang as vapour in the moonlight.

 

Gandalf continued, “You stand in the presence of one of the few in Middle Earth who can read that map.  Show it to Lord Elrond.”

 

For a moment, Bilba really thought Thorin was going to say something rude and march out.  He glared at both Elf and Wizard…and then turned his gaze to Bilba.

 

She thought maybe his eyes softened, some part of him turned inwards, thinking. 

 

He reached for his breast pocket.

 

“Thorin, no,” Balin said, distressed and touching Thorin’s arm. 

 

Thorin pushed it gently aside, muttering, “we cannot be good at everything, old friend.”

 

Balin’s brows knit in confusion, but Bilba sat up sharply against Lea’s neck. 

 

“Dearest,” the Dragon said under her breath, “isn’t that something your father used to say…”

 

Bilba went a bit pink and was saved from answering by Elrond saying, “Erebor,” as he read the map and then, “What is your interest in this map?”

 

“It’s mainly academic,” Gandalf guffed, the terrible, terrible fibber.  “As you know, this sort of artefact sometimes contains a hidden text.  You still read ancient Dwarvish, do you not?”

 

Elrond, who had turned away from them to shed more light upon the map, gave the Wizard a look over his shoulder that said quite clearly that Gandalf was fooling precisely no one.  He turned his attention back to the map however, and murmured something in Elvish.

 

“Moon runes?” asked Gandalf.  “Of course.  An easy thing to miss,” he added to Bilba and Lea, who were making politely puzzled faces at him.

 

“True, in this case,” Elrond was saying, turning the map this way and that.  “Moon runes can only be read by the light of moon of the same shape and season as the day on which they were written.”

 

“Can you read them?” Thorin asked, visible tension in his and Balin’s expressions.

 

Elrond smiled.

 

And that was how they learnt of the Thrush, and the Door…

 

…and then Thorin and Balin failed at Dwarvish secrecy and gave the whole game away.

 

“So this is your purpose?” Elrond said severely, brows drawing down impressively.  “To enter the Mountain and reclaim it from the Dragon.”

 

“What of it?” Thorin growled.

 

“Some,” said the Lord of the Last Homely House, “would not deem it wise.”

 

“Elrond – ” Gandalf tried.

 

“You are not the only guardian watching over Middle Earth,” Elrond said, and exited in a swirl of silk and linen robes.

 

Gandalf cast a dire look at their small assembly and followed.

 

“That does not look good,” Bilba murmured to Lea, as they watched Thorin fold the map and tuck it away into his breast pocket.

 

The Dragon sighed.  “I do believe that we will have to tread a little more carefully from now on.”

 

Bilba groaned.  “Try telling Dwarves that.”

 

\---

 

Despite their first dramatic night, Bilba and Lea enjoyed their time at the Last Homely House.

 

They enjoyed the river, and the library, and the singing, and one night they all came out into the grand courtyard and listened to Lea tell her tale; how she came to be in Middle Earth, flying over and swimming through foreign oceans from her distant homeland, from her lost lover and absent sons and wayward daughters, how she came to rest in the Bywater one cold night, and found her way up the tunnel to the subterranean lake below Bag End…

 

Yes, Rivendell was lovely, and held an appropriately appreciative audience and supplied appropriately appreciable food.

 

The Dwarvish component of their Company, however…

 

Apparently the orchards had been raided, the cellar was running low on beer and red wine, and Bilba had gotten the fright of her life when she went into the west courtyard to read and found most of the Company naked as the day they were born, having boisterous wrestling matches and water fights in the big fountain.

 

There were several yelps of alarm when they spotted her, but Bilba simply dropped her poor book, put her hands over her poor eyes and yelled, “WHY?” to the merciless heavens before turning on her heel and leaving.

 

She wound up beside the river with Lea, shrilly recounting the horrors burnt into her mind’s eye.

 

“…Dwalin has tattoos _everywhere_ , Lea,” she said, “ _I can never unknow that_!”

 

“I feel for you, my dear, I do,” Lea said, stroking her back gently with one curled foreclaw.  “Was Thorin also there?” she added in overly casual tones.

 

“ _LEA_!”

 

Dinner that night was a rather quiet, awkward affair that night, and Thorin spent most of it glowering at his cohorts while Bilba pointedly sat at a separate table with several _elleth_.  One of them asked her something and Bilba, with relish, pitched her voice to carry to the Dwarves table and replied, “Why yes, Adenel, I _did_ bring my knitting needles with me.”

 

Bofur in particular appeared to shrink several sizes in his seat.

 

Either way, it was becoming clear that there time in Rivendell was drawing to a close…

 

\---

 

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, not really, but it wasn’t as though Lord Elrond and Gandalf were taking great pains to keep their voices down (although, she admitted to herself, very privately, they might have if they had been aware that they had company… But Hobbits, as Gandalf had oft pointed out, were very light on their feet, when they mean to be…)

 

At any rate, watching them from the shadowed curve of a parallel walkway, Bilba listened:

 

“Of course I was going to tell you,” Gandalf was saying to Lord Elrond, though Bilba didn’t think he sounded like he had been going to do anything of the sort – his tone was much closer to that of her small cousins when they had been caught on a fib.  “I had been waiting for this very chance.  And really, I think you can trust that I know what I am doing.”

 

Elrond clearly figured the same as Bilba.  “Do you?” he demanded.  “Do you really?  That Dragon has slept for sixty years, Gandalf – what will happen if your plan should fail, if you wake that beast?”

 

“What if we should succeed?” asked Gandalf.  “What if the Dwarves take back their mountain, and our defences to the east are strengthened.  And you forget, you know, we have a Dragon of our own, in the event that things go…awry.”

 

Elrond sighed.  “While I have no doubt that Lady Green is more than a match for Smaug, you cannot guarantee her commitment to this quest.”

 

_How dare he!_ thought Bilba, puffing up with vicarious indignation.  They were totally committed!  She and Lea had both signed that contract and intended to honour it.

 

“What on earth do you mean?”

 

“It is very clear, my friend, that when push comes to shove, Lady Lea’s loyalties will always lie with Mistress Baggins,” Elrond said. 

 

_…oh_ , thought Bilba, deflating.  That sounded about right.

 

“And that is not unreasonable,” Elrond continued, while Gandalf huffed as though he wished for a pipe stem to chew on.  “Though the configuration is not typical, they are effectively kin to one another.  But should the quest put Mistress Baggins at too greater risk, Lady Green will undoubtedly seize her and fly all the way back to the Shire, leaving you short a burglar and a Dragon.  It is a dangerous move, Gandalf.”

 

“Mark my works,” the Wizard muttered, “it will be more dangerous to do nothing.  And besides which, the throne of Erebor is Thorin’s birthright.”

 

As though summoned by his name, Bilba heard a shuffling of Dwarven feet – never very subtle at the best of times – and looked over her shoulder to see the Prince standing by the stairs behind her, also watching the Elf Lord and Wizard pacing.

 

_Oh dear_ , thought Bilba, meeting his eyes.  _This is about to be very awkward_.  Even cousin Lobelia could not manage this level of awkwardness, and that was saying something.  Thorin’s face was currently impassive, but Lea would say that was like expecting a still surface to lead to a still ocean, where the currents could crack one of the ships of men apart in the blink of an eye.

 

“What is it you truly fear in this?” Gandalf was demanding of Elrond.

 

“A strain of madness runs deep in that family,” Elrond said and Bilba closed her eyes, unable to look at Thorin in that moment, though her sharp ears heard him shifting, heard the creak of his leather gloves as he clenched his fists.  “His grandfather lost his mind.  His father succumbed to the same sickness.  Can you swear Thorin Oakenshield will not also fall?”

 

Bilba opened her eyes, and saw that Thorin was turning away, his face drawing in to uncertain, vulnerable lines, which she had never seen from him.  He caught her gaze briefly, and his mouth turned down, tightening.

 

“Gandalf, these decisions do not rest with us alone.  It is not up to you or me to re-draw the map of Middle Earth.”

 

Their voices growing fainter as they moved further down the walkway and up a set of stairs, Bilba still caught Gandalf’s rebuttal of “With or without our help, these Dwarves will march on the Mountain.  They’re determined to reclaim their homeland.  I do not believe Thorin Oakenshield feels that he is answerable to anyone…”

 

“Well, he’s wrong,” Bilba said, as their voices faded from even her hearing.  Thorin looked up at her, startled to hear her speak, she thought.  She gave him a stern look.  “If no one else, you are most definitely answerable to me.”

 

Thorin’s eyebrows shot up his forehead, as thought determined to touch his hairline.  “And how have you come to that conclusion, Mistress Baggins?”

 

“I have a Dragon,” said Bilba flatly.

 

As usual, that rather put paid to any argument.  Thorin, as usual, tried anyway.

 

“You can’t always use Lady Green to win a debate, Mistress Baggins,” he groused.

 

“Oh, can’t I?” she fired back, grinning, then looked rueful.  “You might be right though; at home she’s the Shire’s Dragon, as much as she’s mine, she just happens to live with me.  Trying to win an argument by playing her as a winning card would be rather like trying to win at Conkers with a bag of walnuts.”

 

Thorin’s face was all confusion.  “And that…would not work?”

 

“Oh no, not at all.”

 

“…Ah.”

 

There was a lull and Bilba studied the lit windows and golden lanterns of Rivendell, the pale stone of its masonry turned velvet blue by the night, the gardens filled with sleeping flowers.  Somewhere there would be song and stories in the Hall of Fire, warmth and laughter and the smell of late night suppers, warm bodies, comfort.

 

“This is our last night here, isn’t it?” she murmured.

 

Thorin sighed.  “Though I know our departure will pain you, I must say yes.  We have taken what we need from this place.  And we do not have time to linger.”

 

“No,” Bilba agreed faintly.  “Durin’s day.”

 

“Yes.  And if there are those who would try to stop us…”

 

“You mad paranoid Dwarf,” Bilba said, smiling to take away the sting.

 

Thorin did not smile back and Bilba abruptly recalled, with a wince, the conversation they had both accidentally been privy to.

 

“Thorin…”

 

“It matters not.”

 

“But – I didn’t mean – I don’t think –”

 

“Get some sleep, Mistress Baggins,” he told her, voice gone gruff as he turned from her and strode up the stairs, back into the warmth of the Homely House.  “We will leave on the morrow.”

 

Bilba watched him go, then scrubbed her hands over her face and muttered, “Well done, Baggins, jolly good show.  Both feet in your mouth, this time.”

 

She marched herself off to bed and packed what she could; Thorin would undoubtedly want to leave as soon as possible.  There might not even be time for a proper breakfast if his blood was really up.

 

As it turned out, departure came sooner than expected.

 

\---

 

Bilba was shaken awake before the sun had cleared the horizon.

 

She awoke to find Nori standing on tip toe to reach where she had curled up in a nest of pillows, in the middle of the Man-sized bed.  The Hobbit blinked at him groggily, then frowned.

 

“Nori?  What is going on?”  She struggled upright, still cocooned in the bedclothes.  “Has something happened?”

 

Nori put a finger to his lips, then whispered.  “No time to explain now, Mistress, but we must go quickly.”

 

Oh blow.  Something _had_ happened.

 

Nori turned his back to give her privacy while she changed, and then it was the work of a moment to pack the rest of her things and hurry after him down the corridor towards Lea’s courtyard.

 

The rest of the Company were there – all except Gandalf, which made Bilba nervous – and they too had their packs at their feet.  Dori was fidgeting, for once without his elaborate braids in hair and moustache, and poor Ori looked dazed beside him, still yawning expansively.  Oin, Gloin, Bifur and Bombur were muttering to each other, although it looked like they were also having to use Dwarvish handsigns for Oin; he must have packed his ear trumpet in the rush.  Fili and Kili were occupied with trying to cram what appeared to be pilfered food on top of the boys badly squashed clothing, their pack seams groaning.  Bofur was helping, which mostly appeared to involve telling them they were doing it wrong and then giving conflicting instructions on rectifying matters.

 

Nori lead her to Lea, who had Balin, Dwalin and Thorin at her shoulder and a very small rabbit sitting self-importantly on the back of one foreleg.

 

“Good morning, my dear,” the Dragon greeted Bilba.  “Allow me to introduce Sisa.”  She tilted her nose at the little rabbit, who puffed up a bit further, tail flicking shocking white in the pre-dawn gloom.  “She has very bravely brought us news from Gandalf.”

 

While the last of the packing was undertaken, Lea explained that happily, one of the talents shared by Wizards and Dragons was Speech; they were adept with the tongues of all Races, and with work, many creatures and animals.  Gandalf, Sisa told them, was currently trapped in a meeting with a pair of Elves an another Wizard.  They were discussing trouble to the East, and the Company’s quest.  Gandalf had managed to speak very quietly to Sisa in the tongue of rabbits – which is very quiet anyway and mostly consists of toe taps, tonal huffs and the odd squeak – so that none of the others present were aware, and conveyed that if Thorin and Co wished to continue their quest, they should leave now and be circumspect, least they were stopped by any of the powerful individuals at the meeting.

 

“We shall take the road out of the valley,” Thorin said, shouldering his pack.  “Lady Green?”

 

“I will swim the river and meet you once we are out of the sight of the valley scouts,” Lea said.  “If I fly before then we shall be spotted and the alarm raised.  Bilba, darling, I believe it would be more comfortable for you to journey with our Dwarvish companions; it will be far too cold for you to swim with me.”

 

“Agreed,” Bilba said; she did not fancy a prolonged dip in the river, in the half-dark of dawn.  “What of Gandalf though?  Will he follow us?”

 

“Sisa said he will come when he can.”

 

Bilba chewed her lip.  That did not sound promising.  Lea drew her close with a cupped wing.

 

“Do not fret, dearheart,” her Dragon whispered into her hair, still in a fluff from bed, “we shall see him again.”

 

“I know,” Bilba said, and fought not to dart a glance at Thorin.  “But will it be in time?”

 

Later, and she and the Dwarves hiked out of the valley, Bilba cast a last look over her shoulder at the Last Homely House, glowing in the light of the rising sun, the sky around it rose and gold and lilac.

 

“Will you miss it?”

 

She turned to find Balin smiling at her.  She smiled back, wistful, rueful.  “I imagine so.”

 

“Oh?”

 

Bilba shrugged her pack more securely onto her shoulders.  “Well, while I’m sure Dwarves have many sterling qualities and talents, Elves are infinitely superior at brewing a good cup of tea.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According some parts of the internet, _emel_ is Elvish for 'mother', and _hir nin_ is 'my lord'. If I'm wrong, I don't particularly care at this juncture as my job has been restructured and I'm very tired training all the people to do my role. However if I've got any grammar/spelling bungles, please do let me know. Those I care about.
> 
> Also sorry this took so long, my petals, please see above fiasco. Big, big love to everyone who read, and commented and kudosed and bookmarked. Did anyone subscribe? I can't remember. Someone hug me.


	4. Lost, Wet and Exceptionally Cross (Also Goblins)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “By my beard,” Bofur shouted into the howling storm, “the legends are true! It’s not a thunder storm – it’s a thunder battle!”
> 
> “Just think,” Kili said cheerfully, “if we’d taken the path with might have been crushed by them!”
> 
> “Or kicked sky-high and used for a football,” Dwalin grumbled.
> 
> “Now all we have to do is fly around –” Dori started to say, only to interrupt himself with an almighty shriek as a huge rocky fist whooshed past them, clipping Lea’s right wing and sending them spinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Hi!

_ 4 – Lost, Wet and Exceptionally Cross (Also Goblins) _

 

The journey from Rivendell saw the awkwardness between Bilba and Throin grow. 

 

Bilba worried that he held her unthinking comment about madness against her but for all her usual salt in the face of his moods, this she could not approach him about.

 

“I cannot think where this shyness has come from,” Lea murmured, as Bilba laid her bedroll out between the Dragon’s foreclaws. 

 

“It’s not shyness, precisely,” Bilba said, feeling foolish.  “It – I feel so _embarrassed_ , Lea.”

 

“It was an innocent slip of the tongue, my darling, he surely cannot begrudge you.”

 

“Oh, but I believe he can.”  Bilba put her face against her drawn up knees, feeling all of twenty-four again and having made a fool of herself at Prim’s birthday party, after cousin Drogo caved utterly to peer pressure and put contraband rum in the punch.  There had been dancing on tables and oh, the _agony_ of having to hand-deliver apology notes to their friends and neighbours after she had sung her way home at two in the morning.  “Dwarves are like Sackvilles, Lea; the keenest of grudge holders.  You forget, it’s not as though I accidently told him his tunic was the wrong cut for the occasion.  I insulted his family line and impugned his ability to lead.  I’m doomed.”

 

“Good grief,” muttered Lea, who looked very ready to roll her eyes.  “Well if this is in fact the case then you had better sort it out sooner rather than later, dearest.  Can’t have him stewing on it any further.”

 

Bilba was rather worried they had passed the point of stewing too long several days ago.

 

“You’re right,” she said, nevertheless.  “Tomorrow.  I’ll find a way to talk to him tomorrow.”

 

When tomorrow dawned, it had begun to rain heavily, and they passed out of the foothills and into the Misty Mountains.

 

\---

 

One of the more sensible actions taken while in Rivendell was to have a lightweight harness made for Lea, so that if they got themselves into another pinch she could carry the Company safely and comfortably, without the dire results from last time.  Dwalin, who hand done much of the crafting of the harness, carried it folded away in his pack and it was he who showed the rest of the Company how it would fit upon Lea, in the shelter of an overhang.

 

“Are we sure this will hold us?” Ori said, testing on of the leather straps nervously.

 

“Aye,” Dwalin growled.  “Say what you will about Elves, their leather and cloth is good, and the wire reinforcements I forged meself.  Buckles and safety chains too.”

 

“It is a very handsome piece of work, Mr Dwalin,” Lea said, slowly unfurling her wings and flexing her shoulders.  “Beautifully fitted.  This will work quite nicely I believe.”

 

It had been decided that they would fly through the valleys where the path was old, and the quality of the footing risky, and so with rain pounding on unrelentingly they lashed themselves and their baggage to the harness.  Lea, with a great downward beat of her wings, threw them in the wet sky.

 

The footing, it turned out, was the least of their problems:

 

“By my beard,” Bofur shouted into the howling storm, “the legends are true!  It’s not a thunder storm – it’s a thunder battle!”

 

“Just think,” Kili said cheerfully, “if we’d taken the path with might have been crushed by them!”

 

“Or kicked sky-high and used for a football,” Dwalin grumbled.

 

“Now all we have to do is fly around –” Dori started to say, only to interrupt himself with an almighty shriek as a huge rocky fist _whooshed_ past them, clipping Lea’s right wing and sending them spinning.

 

Bilba clung to Lea’s neck, feeling her friend’s indignant roar vibrate in the Dragon’s throat and up into Bilba’s half-frozen bones, shaking the very air in her lungs, the chambers of her wildly beating heart.  The Dwarves were all yelling with fear behind her, gasping as Lea managed to right herself, only to be hurled upwards on the backwashed air left by another swing from the stone giant.

 

“The right bastards!” Dwalin howled.  “They’re aiming for us!”

 

“Brace!” Lea roared, and began taking evasive manoeuvres.

 

They dipped abruptly, Lea’s wings folding and sending them plummeting past another giant, spinning on a wing tip to dodge one extracting itself from the valley side. 

 

There was the most amazing crashing and crunching behind them, and Bilba risked looking over her shoulder: all was wet darkness, until there was a crack of lightning, and in the white flash she made out the shapes of the giants, chasing them up the valley.  They were huge, and seemed entirely composed of sharp angles.  As the boom of thunder following the first flash faded, there came another and Bilba thought she could make out the giants’ faces, their features alien: she could not parse their expressions, but the hollow pits where eyes would be in a flesh face sent a horrible shiver up her spine.

 

They were so occupied with fleeing the giants behind them, that when the blow came it seemed out of nowhere.

 

From below a giant tore itself free of the valley floor, rising fist first and clubbing Lea out of the sky.

 

Dwarvish make or no, the force of the blow sheared buckles and chains apart, and the last thing Bilba knew was the feeling of her body lifting free of Lea’s shoulder and into the frightening openness of space, pinwheeling, screaming, until her forehead clipped the hard edge of Lea’s wing, and the world went away.

 

\---

 

“Here now,” someone was saying, “She’s coming around.”

 

Bilba’s head hurt abominably.  Her face was tender, and her eyes felt swollen as though she had been crying.  Panic seized her, and she wanted to cry still.  What had happened?  What did her body know that she did not?

 

“Bilba?  Can you open your eyes, Mistress Baggins?”  It was Dori, kind Dori, who was patting her hand.  Bilba took a shaking breath and peeled her eyes open. 

 

As her sight swam into focus she saw Bofur and Dori were peering down at her, their faces anxious. 

 

“What…”  She coughed, her throat thick as though she had a cold.  “What’s happened?”

 

The two of them exchanged nervous looks.  “What do you remember?” asked Bofur.

 

“It doesn’t _matter_ what she remembers,” a new voice said, brittle with temper, and there was Thorin, glowering down at her.  Lightning flashed again, and his eyes were lit like lamps, his face carved of angry stone.  “Get her up and on her feet; we have to move.”

 

Dori and Bofur exchanged a look, both unhappy with the order, but they reached down and gripped Bilba’s arms, and carefully hoisted her up.  Her legs were weak beneath her, bending at the knees without her permission so that Bofur caught her and kept an arm around her waist to keep her upright.  Her head swam, her eyes blurring in protest, but she could make our the figures of other Dwarves around them.  There did not seem to be enough of them.

 

“Bofur,” Bilba whispered.  “Bofur, what has happened?  Where are…where are Nori and Ori and…”

 

And Bombur, and Oin and _oh stars_.

 

Kili – where was young Kili?

 

Where was _Lea_?

 

\---

 

Their group was now pitiably small.  

 

They numbered just six: Dori, Bofur, Dwalin, Thorin and Fili, and Bilba with her aching head.  The Dwarves escaped with a few bumps and scraps, and Dwalin’s sprained wrist, which he only grudgingly allowed Dori to bind for him with a rudimentary splint. 

 

Though physically faring well, they were in poor spirits:  Thorin was horribly wroth, and hardly spoke to anyone, only growling occasionally to Dwalin, who growled back.  Fili, the poor lad, was shattered without the constant shadow of his younger brother, and wane under his beard which was now brown and flat with rain.  He looked like sad, sodden lion, and when Bilba patted his hand making a sympathetic face at him, missing Lea so much she could barely breathe past it, he wound their fingers together and gripped hard, eyes full of hurt. 

 

‘They’re only lads,’ Bilba thought, and gripped back.  ‘Only boys, really.’

 

Fili kept holding her hand, on the pretext of helping her along the rocky, inhospitable path, and Bilba did not dissuade him.

 

As Bofur had related to her, they had all come tumbling from Lea’s back when the stone giant hit her, and been flung into the nearest mountainside to fetch up on an overhang.  They had not been able to rouse Bilba for hours, and for a fraught moment had thought her dead, and then that she would not wake again, ever. 

 

“Had an uncle who went like that,” Bofur said.  “Dwarf heads are hard, but he copped a monstrous blow in a mine collapse and never woke up.  Went in his sleep, two months later.  Tore our auntie up for a good seventy years.”

 

(Bilba privately thought that Bofur’s auntie was probably still ‘torn up’, just better at hiding it, like her mother had been after her father passed.)

 

As for Lea and the rest of the Company, the Dwarves had seen her tumble down the southern branch of the valley, and so they hiked in that direction, hoping to find the Dragon and their kin landed somewhere safely.

 

But without a Dragon it was slow going, and even slower with a dizzy, injured Hobbit.  Bilba, ashamed and then angry of being ashamed, was prevailed upon to be carried by all the Dwarves in turn, with the notable and awkward exception of Thorin, who, when it was his turn, was quickly intercepted by Fili and Dori, and Bilba shuffled carefully onto Fili’s back.

 

“I don’t mind,” Fili told Bilba quietly as he tromped steadily along.  “But Uncle has been in a bit of a sore mood and it is best to just let him be.”

 

Bilba, so tired and sad that she had not been able to keep from resting her head on the shoulders of her Dwarf steeds, nodded against his damp braids and said, unthinkingly, “and he is so angry with me already.”

 

Fili paused, seeming startled.  “Angry with you?”

 

Bilba was very glad they were at the back of the line of Dwarves, and there was no way Dwalin, who was just ahead of them, would hear their conversation over the constant patter of the rain.  “Oh, Fili,” she said miserably.  “I said something in jest in Rivendell, and I offended him, and he’s been cross with me since then.”

 

Fili started walking again.  “It cannot have be so terrible, Mistress Baggins.  And forgive me for speaking ill of kin but… Well, Uncle is a very gruff sort of Dwarf.  He might only _seem_ very cross by Hobbit standards?”

 

“Perhaps,” Bilba said, unconvinced.  


“And he cannot be _very_ angry with you,” Fili continued, warming to the subject.  “He was horribly worried when Dori said you might not wake up, and before then when we found you all cold and still in the rain, he was just as upset as we were.  Maybe more, even!”

 

Bilba did not like to picture it – her apparent corpse on a darkened mountainside, surrounded by long-faced Dwarves who no doubt were thinking about how they would have to present said late Hobbit to her Dragon.  It was a very morbid image and Bilba shivered.  Her own mortality had never been so close and the realities of the Quest were now very apparent.  Even the encounters with the Trolls and the Orc patrol hadn’t frightened her this badly.

 

“Are you cold, Mistress?” Fili asked, no doubt having felt her shiver of horror. 

 

“I’m alright, Fili, thank you.”

 

“We’ll have to stop for the night soon, I think,” he told her.  “Dwarves can see rather well in the dark, you know, but this rain…”

 

As though his words were a talisman, there was a shout of triumph from the front of their short line, and Bofur called back, “A cave!”

 

“Thank Mahal,” Dwalin growled.  Bilba thought his head had to be very cold, being bald and his hood being too badly torn to wear against the elements.  If she could locate her pocket sewing kit in their recovered baggage she would offer to stitch it up for him.

 

The cave was long, with a low ceiling and a sandy floor.  Thorin sent Fili and Bofur to locate the back of the cave – that’s the thing about caves, you don’t how long they are, or who else knows about them, or what could be waiting for you at the back of them.

 

This one seemed alright for the night though; Bofur located the back of it in about twenty minutes, and reported that there were only very old bones, of an unfortunate goat or deer.

 

“Nothing people-shaped,” he assured them.

 

They settled down, and though Thorin didn’t like it, set a very small fire to dry the worst of their things and keep them from freezing – though the cave offered shelter from the wind and rain, the chill of the stone was unrelenting and surrounded them.

 

Bilba, exhausted, ate enough to keep her stomach from snarling, rolled herself in her blanket and lay with her back to the fire, trying to sleep.  Without Lea, it was a daunting task.  Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing.

 

After an hour or so, the Dwarves seem to revive and warm up enough to talk amongst themselves, no doubt believing their Hobbit to be asleep.  Bilba found the murmuring of their conversation a comforting background noise, until she picked up her name:

 

“Bilba is not so flighty, Uncle,” Fili was saying, earnest.  “She would not abandon us, I am sure of it, even if we do not find the Lady Green.”

 

“This is not her place,” Thorin said, harsh over Fili’s protests, “and she will go back to the comfort of her fire place and her armchair and her whistling kettle when she can.”

 

“Thorin,” Dori tried.  “She has been very brave so far…”

 

“With a Dragon at her back,” Thorin said.  “What is she without it?”

 

“Our burglar,” Bofur said, blessedly stalwart. 

 

“Perhaps,” Thorin said, still doubtful. 

 

The conversation stalled for a while after that, and Bilba heard Dori, Bofur and Fili bed down around the fire.  Dwalin and Thorin stayed up for a while longer, speaking in Khuzdul this time, but she could still make out her own name, and each time was a fist around her heart without the soothing bulwark of Lea beside her.  What was she without her Dragon indeed?

 

Eventually, they too settled to sleep, but Bilba could not.

 

She waited for the sounds of Dwarven snoring to fill the cave, then carefully got to her feet.

 

This was possibly the worst idea she had ever had, and something in her was violently unhappy to be proving Thorin right, but if he doubted her so badly, what was the point of staying and enduring his temper? 

 

It was possible that our Hobbit was not making decisions with an entirely clear head: such a terrible bump to the skull can be as bad a half a barrel beer to a person’s perspective and sense, and this was very likely so in Bilba’s case.

 

So, with exaggerated care, she staggered over the sleeping Dwarves, wearing her pack lopsidedly and tottered over to the cave mouth.

 

“Mistress Baggins?”

 

_Blast._

 

Bilba spun about, nearly tipped over, and found herself steadied by big hands.  Bofur frowned down at her.

 

“What are you doing?” Bofur wanted to know.

 

The problem with Bofur was for all that he was an incorrigible trickster, he had a damnably honest face, and Bilba discovered that looking at him while lying was going to be impossible.

 

“I’m…” Bilba swallowed.  She felt wretched.  “I’m going.”

 

“What?”  He looked startled, then peered through the cave mouth behind her.  “Where?  In this weather?”

 

“I – oh, Bofur, I can’t stay here!” Bilba insisted quietly.  “I shouldn’t even be here in the first place – I don’t know what I was thinking!  I’ve no business being on a Quest of all things, with or without Lea.”

 

Bofur’s face was undergoing a series of expressions that started with worry and finished with grim sadness.  “You want to go home.”

 

“ _Of course I do_ ,” Bilba exclaimed, miserable, and by this point, angry.  “And why shouldn’t I?  Why should I want to stay on a journey with people who doubt me and denigrate me _behind my back_ -” and here Bofur went a pale with mortification and his moustache seemed to droop even further, if that was at all possible, “-who didn’t really want me along in the first place?  Why should I stay?

 

“What _am I_ without my Dragon, Bofur?”

 

Bilba was feeling properly fired up by this point and glaring at poor, stalwart Bofur, who could only gaze back at her with big sad eyes and helplessly spread his hands.

 

“It’s as I said, Miss Baggins,” he said quietly.  “You’re our Burglar.”

 

Bilba snorted.  “Historically, burglary hasn’t gone well for me.”

 

“Come on now,” he said, managing a small grin.  “Only your first go, thought, wasn’t it?”

 

“Bofur…”  Bilba closed her eyes, her head beginning to pound again.  “Bofur, I have to find her.  I have to find Lea.  She’s…”

 

“She’s your family, aye, I know.  But…”

 

He stopped abruptly, blinking down, seemingly unable to meet her eyes anymore.

 

“But what, Bofur?” Bilba said.

 

“Bilba,” he said, strangely tense.  “Why is your sword glowing?”

 

It was at this point that the floor began to split open and they were all plunged, screaming, into the dark.

 

\---

 

Now, Bilba and her small company would hear of what happened to their kin and her Dragon afterwards, but for the sake of continuity, there is no harm in you knowing now.

 

Lea, for her part, had never been so furious or insulted in her long life, not even when her youngest daughter went off to marry that harridan from Up North and set in motion a small tribal war in the Upper Archipelago.  _That_ was mostly embarrassing.  The _audacity_ of being struck by a bit of sentient mountain was preposterous in the first instance – mountains had no business moving about during daylight, even if it was a day darkened by a storm – and _infuriating_ in the second as it was extraordinarily bad manners to go about _punching people out of the sky_.

 

If they came back this way, Lea determined she was going to Do Something about those giants.

 

She informed her remaining passengers about this when they had landed, and got a collection of deeply nervous looks in return.

 

At any rate, they landed, Lea discovered that Bilba was missing (again!  This had better not be a developing habit) and prompting became Very, Very Angry.

 

Despite the damp, quite a bit of the surrounded scrub was set on fire, and the local wild life got rather a bad fright.

 

Shelter was not so much located as created: Lea found a suitable indent in the side of the nearest mountain and took the rest of her rage out on it, blasting the stone with her fire until it was soft enough to be clawed out and create a cave for the Dwarves.  Once the stone had sufficiently cooled from dangerously hot to pleasantly warm, the Company entered and took stock.

 

The first order of business was to find the rest of their kin, and Bilba.

 

“We’ll have to head back the way we came, Lady Green,” Nori said. 

 

“Aye,” Balin agreed.  “Likely they were flung away when that great stone menace hit us and broke the harness.”

 

Lea expelled a gout of irritated steam from her nostrils and thought back.  “I believe you are correct; I felt something strike my wing after the blow.  It could have been one of our company being flung away.  Is the rest of the harness serviceable?”

 

Bifur said something in Khuzdul, which was rapidly translated by Gloin.  “Says he can rig it up to work, Milady, but it’ll take a bit of time.  Won’t be as strong, either – we’ve not the tools, or a forge.”

 

Lea could feel the restlessness building in her.  Her people may not have hoarded gold and jewels, but they had kept treasure; their families were two-legged and four, and jealously guarded against harm.  Separation from Bilba was like a sharpened stone beneath the skin; constantly painful, unignorable and intolerable.

 

“Then you must do what you can, Mr Bifur,” Lea told them.  “And I must do what I can.  If you will remain here and work on the harness, I will fly back up the valley and attempt to trace them.”

 

The Dwarves agreed, and Lea stepped away from the cave in order to keep from blowing rain into it when she leapt up.  She had just spread her wings when there was a shout from her left flank.

 

“Lady Green!  Lady Green, take me with you!”

 

Lea looked down to see Kili rushing after her.

 

“Kili –”

 

“I can help,” he told her earnestly.  “Four eyes are better than two, that’s what my Ma always says, when Fili and I go hunting.  I can look in one direction and you in the other.”

 

“Your mother is right,” Lea said, trying to be gentle.  “But we have no harness, nothing to hold you to my back if we are set upon again by the giants.”

 

“The harness hardly worked against them anyway.  And look –” he showed her several leather straps belted about his waist.  “Bifur said these can’t be re-attached, but they still have their buckles; I could strap myself to one of your spines.  That’s something, isn’t it?  At least?”

 

Lea sighed, white sparks drifting from her nose to fizz in the rain.  Kili looked the way she felt – torn asunder.  He was so young, and away from his brother and uncle for perhaps the first time in his life…

 

_Botheration._

 

“It will have to do,” Lea said, and dropped one shoulder so he could scramble up her wing to her back.  She waited until he had belted himself firmly to one of the spines between her shoulders, then flung herself upwards.

 

Cautious this time, Lea made her way back down the valley to where it branched, and she and Kili cast about for some trace of their companions.  This necessitated peering through the pouring rain, landing when one of them spotted something and then nosing about amongst the rubble of the thunder battle for some sign of Dwarven passage.

 

“Should we not search for Hobbit signs, too?” Kili asked.

 

“You would not find them,” Lea told him.  “Not in all this rain and upon stone.  Hobbits are too light-footed by far.”

 

“Surprising, given the size of the feet.”  


“Ah, but that it _why_ they are so light-footed.  A small weight, and therefore a small force, spread across a wide plane means that plane will not leave such a great indent upon a soft surface.”

 

Kili frowned up at her from the trail they were inspecting.  Then his expression lifted with revelation and he smiled, excited.

 

“Oh!  Oh, like snow shoes!”

 

“Exactly.  Now imagine how well you could move, how quietly, if you had complete physiological control of your snow shoes – that is how Hobbits move.”

 

“Amazing,” Kili said distractedly as he climbed back onto her back.  “A shame it won’t help us find them.”

 

Lea sighed.  “No, indeed.”

 

After seven such dead-ends and many long, wet hours later, they were no closer to locating Bilba and the lost Dwarves.

 

“Perhaps we should head back, my Lady,” Kili said.  He was, despite his oiled leathers and hood, thoroughly soaked and beginning to shiver.  Having him strapped to her back was rather like having a wet bag of sad bees attached to her, his chainmail jingling and teeth chattering.

 

“We shall head back immediately, dear,” Lea said.  The last thing they needed was one of the boys getting a chill.

 

As the lifted away, Lea’s feet kicked loose a pile of stones, and with them, a hint of a scent.

 

_Bilba._  

 

Bilba’s blood.  A few droplets caught and sheltered from the rain, waiting.

 

Lea dropped immediately, ignoring Kili’s startled yell, and thrust her nose into the pebbles. 

 

There, more blood – tiny, tiny fragment, but they were there, better yet, there was a trail if she pressed face to the track and pushed forward with her nose.

 

“Lady Green?”

 

“Hold on, dear,” Lea said.  “I believe we will have our friends back momentarily.”

 

\---

 

Being hurled down a stone chute and into the arms of snarling goblins was at once the last thing Bilba expected and the last thing she needed with a head injury. 

 

After hitting the deck on their knees and backsides the Company were immediately hauled up and shoved along a series of platforms and catwalks of fearful construction that creaked alarmingly as they ran, goblins shrieking and laughing, cracking their whips and rattling their knives.

 

“Run, rats!” they howled, gleeful.  “It’s down to Goblin Town to see the Great Goblin for you!  Trespassing on our doorstep – cor, we’ll have some fun with this lot and no mistake!”

 

Bilba, her balance still off, stumbled and nearly fell, only to be snatched up by one of the larger goblins, who peered at her and then took a deep, awful sniff of her face and hair.

 

“Boss!” he yowled to the lead goblin.  “Boss, this one smells different!”

 

The pace slowed marginally and the lead goblin barked back, “Different?  Different how?”

 

More horrid sniffing.  Bilba wriggled angrily and got in at least two good slaps at the disgusting thing’s face. 

 

“Geddoff!” she snarled.  The indignity of it!

 

“Rargh!” the goblin yelped.  “Not Dwarf, boss!  And it’s hitty!”

 

They halted entirely, the lead goblin rolling his eyes and visibly losing patience.  “So hit it back, boy!”

 

“Don’t you dare!” Fili shouted, beginning to struggle violently against his captors.  He was promptly thumped for his trouble.

 

“Yeah, let her go!” chimed in Bofur.

 

“ _Her_?” several goblins chorused with leering interest. 

 

“Shut up, all of you,” Thorin hissed desperately.

 

“I thought lady-Dwarves had beards?” one goblin said, intrigued.  The big one holding Bilba began turning her this way and that, examining her in a manner she did not like.

 

“I’m not a Dwarf,” Bilba said through gritted teeth.  The hand being held to her side was at just the right spot to… if she could just…

 

“Well what are you then?” barked the lead goblin.  “Better be something edible.”

 

“I’m a Hobbit of the Shire,” she yelled, drawing her little sword and putting it through the big goblin’s groin, “and I will not stand for this criminal abuse!”

 

The big goblin screamed and dropped her to cup his now fountaining crotch, black blood spewing in great arcs from at least one severed artery, and Bilba rolled away, squealing.

 

They were none of them quick enough to grab her before she tumbled over the edge of the platform.

 

She fell, and the last thing she heard was Thorin’s yell of her name before the darkness found her again.

 

\---

 

Above ground, Lea had found the conclusion of the scent trail and was digging into the mountain side in a furore.

 

Kili had scrambled into the cave first and pulled out a few abandoned packs – most notably his brother’s – and was required to duck every time Lea sent a pile of sand and stone flying out behind her.

 

“Are you sure, my Lady?” he asked, dropping down as yet another chunk of stone the size of a sofa went whirling overheard.  “Only I’ve been right to the back of this cave, like you asked, and there’s nothing there.”

 

“Not _in_ the cave, Kili,” Lea called back.  “ _Beneath it_!  The stone rings hollow.”

 

“I can’t hear it!”

 

“You don’t have Dragon ears.  There is something under here, a tunnel I think, and it is where Bilba and our friends have gone.”

 

Kili dropped his brother’s pack and hastily climbed over Lea’s legs to get to her head.  “Goblins!  It’ll be goblin chutes!  Uncle said the Misty Mountains were riddled with the damn things.”

 

Lea let out a snarl of disgust.  _More dratted goblins!_

 

“Well that is just bloody lovely,” she growled, throwing all decorum to the wind.

 

“It jolly well is not,” said an irritable voice behind her.  Lea backed hastily out of the cave, and she and Kili blinked in surprise at who stood beside its mouth.

 

_“Gandalf!”_

 

\---

 

When Bilba came to – for the second time in as many days – it was not upon stone, but, by dint of some serious luck, upon a pile of enormous subterranean mushrooms.

 

Though perhaps not that lucky, Bilba reflected, given that these fungi were worryingly pungent and appeared to be glowing under the eaves of their dark green caps.  Struggling upright and out of the mushroom patch left her sneezing (into her elbow to muffle the sound from potential lurkers) and striped here and there with glowing spores.  She could smell the mushrooms’ dubious perfume on her hair and clothing too, but, while unpleasant, it might mask her scent from goblins.

 

‘Now what?’ she thought, looking about and dusting herself off.  ‘Do I go after Thorin and the others, or try and find a way out back to Lea and the rest of the Company?  I suppose I must go after Thorin, as they are in strife… but would it not be better to find Lea and then attempt to rescue them?  What could I do by myself?’

 

Regardless, she would first have to find her way upwards, as that was undoubtedly where Thorin and Bofur and the rest were, given how far she had fallen, and where the way out was.

 

She was right on at least one count: she could not know it, but the Throne Room was down, and down, and down further still to Goblin Town, in the heart of the mountains.

 

So Bilba set off, heading for the moment in the same general direction of as Thorin and abbreviated Company had been driven by the goblins.  The path was mostly level, but littered with loose rock, big and small, and mostly sharp – even for tough Hobbit feet – so the going was slow.

 

(Once, she fell, and as she scrambled up, she felt something in amongst the pebbles and debris.  Some small and round.  Unthinkingly, she put it in her pocket, and went on her way.)

 

Quite without meaning to, she began to veer towards the gentler parts of the path, and in doing so missed a few turns that would have taken her further upwards; she did not see them in the utter blackness, making her way by feel.

 

The path became sandy, rather than stony, and up ahead, she could discern – was that light?

 

_Yes!  Yes it was!_

 

Bilba crept eagerly forwards, feeling herself begin to grin.  What luck, to find a way out this far down!  It must come out at the base of one of the valleys…

 

But it was _not_ a way out.  She stumbled forward, running out of tunnel wall and emerging suddenly into an open space. 

 

It was a cavern.

 

Many, many times bigger than Lea’s room at home, this one was so broad that in this darkness, she could not make out its end. 

 

The light she had seen was not daylight, or moonlight, or even the faint flickering of starlight.  It was glow worms, their little lights flicking green and blue.  Bilba had never seen glow worms before, but Lea had, in the caves of her homeland; little Bilba had sat at the Dragon’s feet, wide-eyed with wonder as she described these sacred places, echoing with the voices of lost ancestors and filled with these living stars.

 

The only sound here was the familiar shushing of water over stone, and a few steps more brought her to the water’s edge; it was black and silky, and deathly cold when it washed over her toes.  Bilba startled back, gasping.  The sound seemed offensively loud, after so long padding silently in the stifling, clinging blackness of the tunnels.  One hand flew to her mouth in a belated attempt to call the gasp back, and the other to her little sword.  She froze, listening hard.

 

Somewhere out there, upon the water, there was a muted splash, like a fish jumping.

 

Bilba waiting, ears straining.

 

Perhaps it really was just a fish.  One of those weird, eyeless things Lea talked about chasing as a hatchling in her mother’s mountain den.

 

Just as she began to relax, unwinding the tension from her hunched shoulders, there was a breath of fetid air upon her neck and a voice said,

 

“What is it, precious, what does it do, down here by our lake?”

 

\---

 

Lea had now been separated from her Hobbit for eighteen hours and counting.

 

If something irreparable had happened to Bilba, Lea decided she would very calmly go about levelling the Misty Mountains as a whole and incinerate every goblin to ever have set foot above or below them.

 

So far she had only voiced this plan to Gandalf, as dragonfire of any kind seemed to make the Dwarves nervous, especially the older ones.

 

Mind you, Gandalf hadn’t exactly looked thrilled with the idea, either.

 

“I’m sure it won’t come to that, Lady Green,” he said, in between muttering spells over the cave while the Dwarves continued excavation efforts. 

 

Privately, Lea had her doubts.

 

From the cave there came a cry of “Aha!  We have it!  We’re through!”

 

“Well done!” Gandalf called back, “Well done, all of you, very well done!”

 

“What can you see?” Lea said, sticking her head into the cave and peering about.  There was an awful lot of dust, despite the damp, and she had to squint to make out the Dwarves, all of them ankle deep in rubble.  Bifur was at the centre, gesturing hugely, and lo, there was a wide crack in the floor of the cave and faint light leaking from it.

 

Also, smell.

 

Lea wrinkled her nose and drew back from it in revulsion.  It was unpleasantly familiar – she had last encountered it in the Trollshaws.

 

“Lady Green?”

 

“Definitely goblins, my dears,” she said.  “And from the smell, a great many of them.”

 

There was a communal groan from the Dwarves.

 

“What will we do?” Ori said, looking a little white around the eyes.  “Against so many?”

 

“Whatever we can, laddie,” Balin said grimly.

 

Lea drummed her talons on the stone, feeling the fire bank inside her.

 

Her stomach rumbled tellingly.

 

“I wouldn’t worry,” she said, giving herself a settling sort of shake, the quills along her spine rattling.  “You may want to step back, gentlemen; it’s going to get rather warm in here.”

 

\---

 

When you have been living underground for a few hundred years, you come to expect a few things as given:

 

Number one, fish (delicious, slippery and sweet).

 

Number two, the birthday present (shiny, whispering merciless and cold in the dark).

 

Number three, goblins (dangerous, unless you catch one of the small ones alone, and then, oh precious, then there is juicy black feast for days and nights and days again, blood like ink staining fingers and mouth).

 

At _no point_ had this list ever included a small round person in a waistcoat whipping around when he got close and landing an absolutely _corking_ blow to his face with what appeared to be – even to Gollum’s eyes – a _particularly_ ugly table leg.

 

(Yes, Bilba had brought the table leg with her.  Initially, because she did not have any kind of weapon, but she then kept it after acquiring her little sword because the table leg she at least knew how to use.  Its continued presence caused Dwalin daily pain, and he had threatened to re-forge it the moment he had time and a working forge.

 

“You can’t do that!” Bilba had exclaimed.  “It’s a family heirloom!”

 

And so Dwalin went on, suffering in artisanal silence.)

 

Gollum retreated hastily, howling in agony and horror, staring at the creature that had struck him.

 

“What do you mean by it?” it shouted at him, shaking the table leg, “What do you mean by creeping about in the dark and – and _sneaking_ up on decent people!”

 

“Sneak!” Gollum cried back still clutching is aching face, “We does not sneak!  You – you was not listening!”

 

“ _Twaddle_!” the creature shouted.  “That is absolute _tripe_!  You crept up on me, like – like some kind of – of _pervert_!  It’s the dizzy damned limit!”  It advanced on him, shaking the table leg again.  “I won’t have it!”

 

“Yes, yes, alright, whatever it pleases, _gollum gollum_!” he said, skittering away from it.

 

Perhaps it had been a mistake, to try for this prey, who was not behaving like prey at all, and eyed Gollum like it was thinking of thumping him again on principal.

 

There was a pause as they both watched each other warily.

 

“You live here, don’t you?” the creature asked, examining him with chilly blue eyes.  Gollum remembered, long ago, there had been a sky like those eyes, when there had been snow on the ground and ice covering their fishing ponds. 

 

Gollum took a careful step back.

 

“Yes,” he said, “yes, ages and ages, we lives here, by our lake.”

 

The creature said, “you’ll know the way out then.”

 

“The way out?”

 

“Out of the goblin tunnels.”

 

Gollum pretended to think this over.

 

“Ye-e-es,” he said, “We might, we might, precious, we could know of a way out, though we doesn’t go there – too close to the town of the goblinses, too many nasty gnashers and grabbers, all with hooks and whips and sharp teeth, precious!  _Gollum, gollum_!”

 

“Well then,” said the creature, lowering the table leg.  “You can take me there.  I want to get out of here.”

 

“But what will it gives us, precious,” Gollum insisted.  “What does we get if we takes it to the back door?”

 

This was perhaps a mistake: a light came into the stranger’s eyes and its mouth curled into a smirk that could be described as _dangerous_.  The feeling was rather like spotting a rabbit, and upon reaching for the morsel realising it was _not_ a rabbit but a mad mountain hare, right before taking a swift kick to the nadgers.

 

“How about this,” it said, “You get me out of here and when my Dragon comes for me, I’ll tell her _not_ to eat you.”

 

\---

 

Thorin had done a great deal in his life, and so it followed that he had much to regret.

 

He regretted being unable to save more of his people, that awful day as the Mountain burned from the inside out.

 

He regretted the loses of his brother, his brother-in-law, his father and grandfather upon the battlefields of Azanulbizar.

 

He deeply regretted not slaying the Pale Orc and his kin, who took his family from him.

 

There were times he regretted bringing his nephews upon this journey, fearing that the whispers were true – that the line of Durin was cursed, and any attempt to reclaim their seat within the Mountain was thusly cursed as well.

 

Very often he regretted his sense of direction and, lately, this was followed with regretting bringing a Hobbit and her large scaly companion with them on this potentially-cursed affair.

 

As of this minute, as he stood before the Goblin King, listening to him mock Thorin and his kin for very nearly all of the above, he found he could only regret one thing: Bilba could very well be dead, and if that was the case, she had gone to her grave alone, and afraid, and with her soul hurt by his unkind and unthinking words.

 

Later, there would perhaps be time for grief, but for now his heart was filled with shame, and in the presence of his enemies this shame became rage.

 

He would, he promised himself, lay hands again upon his sword, and then he would cut down this sneering, jibing mockery of a king and after that he would find the ones that had cast Bilba aside without thought and he would take their heads from their shoulders…

 

Or he would have, had the platform beneath them not given an alarming quiver.

 

The Great Goblin paused in his joyful tirade and muttered, “What was that?”

 

There came muffled boom, from above the great cavern, and the platform quivered again, harder this time.  Several goblins screeched and skittered to stay on their feet.   The Dwarves reached for each other, swaying as one would on the deck of ship.

 

There was another boom, and another, and _another_ , volleys of thunder from an approaching storm, each closer than its predecessor.  The walkways and platforms of the Goblin city swung and shook with each boom, their occupants wailing and shrieking while their King roared and squawked his wroth, demanding to know who dared beat their war drums under his hills!

 

And then…

 

…it stopped.

 

There was a breathless pause, and in the ringing silence they all stood waiting, tense as pulled bowstrings.

 

Thorin nearly shouted when a voice said, very softly, right next to his ear, _“pick up your sword.”_

 

In the next moment, the cavern was plunged into darkness.

 

Thorin snarled in Khuzdul, “ _get your weapons_!” and felt their small company lunge for their piled axes and blades.

 

In the pitch black, the puzzled muttering of the Goblins was broken by the calamitous crack of rending stone, like the awful booming of the thunder battle magnified tenfold as it echoed and ricocheted through the cavern.  Thorin looked up to witness a section of the ceiling split as though from the downstroke of an enormous celestial axe.  Rock and dust rained down, and in the swirling morass of debris he could just make out familiar figures descending on undoubtedly misappropriated Goblin ropes.

 

“ _Du Bekar_!” came the cry from many throats, answered by the Dwarves around him.

 

And then – oh and _then_ , like a scene from nightmare, came the Lady Green.

 

If the ceiling cracking open and disgorging several shouting Dwarves had caused the Goblin hoards some surprise, then the emergence of a large, positively _murderous_ reptile set them to yammering and howling with panic, and it was into this frenzy, the Dragon descended, her wings the precursor to a storm, her jaws full of alien roaring and silver fire. 

 

Thorin had never seen flames like them – eye-searing white in the gloom of the cavern, they clung to everything they touched and sent Goblins falling from their perches, burning and screaming, the dragonfire eating them alive.  The sight might have been…hypnotic, were it not for Lady Green’s voice filling the cave with dire resonance as she shouted imprecations in a myriad of Tongues.  Of the words, Thorin recognised only Westron – the rest was indecipherable to him – but the clear theme was:

“ _WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY HOBBIT_!”

 

“Oh,” Ori said, in a fit of magnificent understatement, “heck.”

 

\---

 

BOOM.

 

BOOM.

 

BOOM.

 

It seemed as though the entire world was reverberating; a mountainous bell strung over and over with the hammer of heaven.

 

Bilba and the creature gapped at the ceiling as dust and glow worms cascaded down around them, then had to hastily dodge as chunks of rock the size of hay bales began to fall, landing with great splashes and sploshes into the lake.

 

“What is happening, precious!” the creature cried, leaping from place to place to avoid being crushed.

 

“How would I know!” Bilba shouted irritably back, doing the same and feeling great resentment for Goblins as a whole and their need to live in horrible, _quaking_ caves full of weird creatures and liable to fall apart at a moment’s notice.

 

This was all forgotten at the first belling call from above.

 

“Goblinses,” bleated the creature, “Goblin horns calling for goblin hoards!”

 

“ _That_ was no horn,” Bilba said, grinning madly.  “That –” there was another familiar roar “– is my _Dragon_ ,” and she took off for the passage where she had come in.

 

For a moment, it looked as though the creature would stay with its lake – more fool him if Lea sniffed the place out and found him before Bilba found Lea – but from behind Bilba there was a wail of “wait, wait, you will go the wrong way!  _Gollum, gollum_!”

 

“Well what is the right way then?” Bilba said, looking impatiently upwards as the roaring and booming of shattering stone continued overhead.  “And the right way to where?  I want to get to my Dragon, now.  Do you know where the noise is coming from?”

 

The creature skittered in a fearful circle, big eyes flicking back and forwards when they reached the first fork in the passage.

 

“Goblin Town,” it muttered, as though to itself, “Goblin Town all pulled down.  Fire, murder!  And what of us, precious, what of us!”

 

It wrung its big hands – “they’ll see us, precious, see us and eat us and -” and it’s fingers knotted as it froze, it’s back to Bilba.

 

“Look,” Bilba said, “if you won’t help me, just go back and I’ll find my own way!”

 

“Won’t eat us,” the thing was saying to itself, slowly, as if in realisation, “won’t eat us if they can’t see us…”

 

It put two long pale fingers into the pocket of its filthy loincloth…

 

…and abruptly began screaming.

 

“WHERE IS IT?  WHERE IS THE PRECIOUS?”

 

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliffhanger! I had a little minute and was unable to keep going. Time for new chapter minty freshness (thanks Starship). I'm not totally happy with this chapter, largely because I've had some health stuff going on lately - google 'trigeminal neuralgia' - and while I wanted to write, at times it was a bit of a slog. Sorry, darlings.
> 
> I had someone ask about Lea's name and pronunciation - think/say it however you like! In my head it's 'lee', as in the leeward side of something in the wind.
> 
> On the upswing, thank you so much to everyone who has commented and left kudos and bookmarked! Your encouragement really does get me back to the keyboard and determined to keep going!


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